Gluten Free Cherry Cobbler

Summer conjures up fond memories of vacations, camping, outdoor activities, and hours spent in the sunshine. I didn’t always spend my summers slinking from patches of shade to the indoors. Now I prefer to sparkle with an eerie luminescence, but a mild sun allergy and life in Seattle will do that to you. When summer is upon me, I think of all of these things followed by, "When are peaches in season?"

Peaches are my favorite fruit and I have to wait until the end of summer to have them. This would be a tragedy... if cherries and raspberries didn't exist.

I am fortunate to live in the state of Washington. After June, small canopies and card tables stacked with boxes full of bright red, dark purplish red, and yellow cherries dot the roadsides. Quite simply: we're spoiled.

This year, Lance signed us up for a fruit and vegetable delivery service through his place of work. It has been great! We have spent much less on the groceries, and we are forced to eat a variety instead of just falling back on the items we know we can prepare quickly. Because we can have upwards of five pounds of cherries in a single delivery and there are only two of us to eat them, we have discovered that a crumble is a great way to make sure they don't go to waste.

Cherry Cobbler Filling
3.5 pounds cherries, pitted
3 apples, peeled and diced into 1/2" pieces
4 T tapioca starch
3/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Step one should really be purchasing a cherry pitter. These handheld little wonders help minimize the amount of time that goes into pitting cherries, which helps cut down on the amount of staining on your fingers. My poor mother-in-law helped me manually pit ten pounds of cherries when she came to visit one year. I received a cherry pitter in the mail a few weeks later. The hint wasn't subtle, but the gift is very appreciated.

I halve the cherries, dice the apples, and leave them in a large mixing bowl. Combine the dry ingredients and evenly distribute over the fruit, then stir to make sure it is mixed evenly. Pour the mixture into a 9X13 pan and heat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Cherry Cobbler Crust
1 c brown rice flour
1/2 c teff flour
1/2 c sorghum flour
2 T tapioca starch
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1 c sugar
1 c palm oil

Teff is an Ethiopian grain that has a very mild taste and is great to bake with, particularly with cake and cupcake recipes. If you can't find it locally, just use sorghum flour. I prefer to use Turbinado sugar or evaporated cane juice in both steps because of the texture and less processing is required to manufacture the product.

Combine the dry ingredients thoroughly. Add the palm oil and either use a pastry cutter or a fork to combine the ingredients until they are mixed well. It's okay to have the texture of fine gravel, although I'll use my hands to combine the ingredients at the end to get a smooth texture. Pour this mixture evenly over the fruit in the pan to form a crumble crust.

Bake for 30-45 minutes or until the crust is very slightly browned and the filling is bubbling.

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