Martha’s Easy Peach Cobbler

INGREDIENTS

— 2 15 ounce cans sliced peaches, drained

— 5 slices of white bread

— 1-1/2 cups sugar

— 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

— 1 egg, beaten

— 1 stick butter, melted

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place fruit in 8×8 baking dish.

Cut crust from bread and then cut each slice into 5 slices. Place strips of bread over peaches.

Mix sugar, flour, egg and butter. Blend well then pour over bread strips.

Bake 35-45 minutes or until brown.

 

Caramel Apple Pecan Dump Cake

INGREDIENTS

— 2 cans (21 ounces) apple pie filling

— 1 box (16 ounces) butter golden or spice cake mix

— 1 cup butter, melted

— 1/2 cup caramel sauce, like you would put on ice cream

— 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

— 1 cup chopped pecans

INSTRUCTIONS

In a greased 9×13 inch baking dish, mix apple pie filling and caramel sauce. Add cinnamon. Spread evenly in the pan.

Pour dry cake mix directly on top of the pie filling and spread evenly.

Top with melted butter and pecans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until top is golden brown and apple filling is bubbly.

 

Mother’s Day was around the corner, and instead of taking my mom out for lunch, I decided to cook and have our small family over for supper.

Because I like to bake and for everyone to have choices when they come to our house for a meal, I decided to make two desserts.

Since I still had some dry cake mix leftover from a dish I made a few weeks ago and wanted to get it out of my cabinet, I started searching through my stack of dessert recipes for some type of dump cake. Those are easy to put together.

I also found a recipe for caramel apple pecan dump cake that sounded pretty good and I had all of the ingredients needed to make it.

I have no idea where the recipe originated. It was typed on a white piece of paper about half way through my stack of recipes.

I also found a cobbler recipe which was passed down from a wonderful lady I’ve gotten to know through work, Martha Gaither.

A while back, we were talking about cobblers and she told me she had a good, easy recipe for peach cobbler. Of course she was more than happy to write it down for me, and when I got home, I added it to my stack of dessert recipes to try.

I decided to wait until Sunday afternoon to put these desserts together and time it so they would come out of the oven right after we ate our meal. After a minute or two of thinking that way, I decided to prepare them a little early and we could just heat them up when everyone was ready for a little something sweet.

After lunch on Sunday, I started gathering the ingredients for both cobblers. The first dessert I attempted was the peach one. There was just one regular-size can of peaches in the cabinet, but knew I had some in the freezer I’d put up last year. I thought they would work just fine in this recipe.

We don’t eat white bread, so I’d purchased a loaf while at the store Saturday. All of the other ingredients are pretty much staples at our house.

I opened the can of peaches, drained them and poured them in the dish. The ones I had in the freezer were thawed. After draining them, I added them to the dish also.

I trimmed the crust off each slice of bread, cut each slice into five strips and placed the strips on top of the peaches, then mixed the other ingredients. When the mixture was nice and smooth, I poured it over the dish.

I put the cobbler in the preheated oven and set the timer.

While the cobbler was baking, I put the dump cake together.

Since we were having two desserts, I opted to cut this recipe in half and bake it in an 8×8 inch pan instead. I wasn’t going to be using all of that leftover dry cake mix, but at least I could use some of it.

I greased the baking dish, dumped the apple pie filling and caramel sauce in and went ahead and added the cinnamon so I could just mix it all up at one time, right in the baking pan. It was nice not dirtying bowl.

After spreading the mixture out, I sprinkled eight ounces of the dry cake mix on top and topped it with the pecans and melted butter.

I popped it into my second oven, which I’d preheated, and set the timer for 50 minutes.

When the peach cobbler timer sounded, the top of the cobbler wasn’t very brown so I let it bake for 10 more minutes. Still it wasn’t as brown as I wanted, and I let it continue baking about 10 more minutes. When the dish came out of the oven, it looked and smelled so good, I could hardly wait to dig into it.

When the timer sounded for the dump cake it looked brown and bubbly. I removed it from the oven and we were set for the evening’s sweet treats.

My family arrived and we were ready to eat at about 6:30 p.m. Half way through the meal, I mentioned that everyone might want to save room for dessert. My son’s eyes got real big and he had a smile on his face.

After clearing the supper dishes from the table, we sat and talked for a while to let all of that food settle. Then it was time for the best part of the meal in my opinion — because I’d give up “real food” for dessert any day of the week.

I’d put the desserts in the oven to warm while we were eating and they had warmed just enough. I sat them on the table along with ice cream, whipped topping, plates and spoons.

I served my mom first and she choose to eat a little bit of each dessert with ice cream.

After everyone else served themselves, we all dug in.

Like my mom, I took a little of both desserts with some added ice cream. I thought they were both yummy, but the peach was my favorite, though I would have liked more peaches.

Mom said she thought they were both fine.

My brother commented he liked the apple but Granny Smith apples would have made it great. I mentioned to him it’s a dump cake, which means just opening something and dumping it in, no peeling, coring, chopping, etc.

After finishing off his plate of caramel apple dump cake, he served himself some peach cobbler. Everyone liked the peach, especially the crust; they were surprised it included strips of white bread.

When it was all said and done, and everyone was overly stuffed, the verdict was that both desserts were good.

I nailed both of these recipes and I’ve decided I’ll hang on to them for future gatherings.

Mrs. Gaither was right, that’s some good peach cobbler, and easy too.

Sarah Condley is an amateur baker and chef who is compiling a cookbook of her favorite recipes