It’s still rhubarb season for a little bit longer. I was thrilled to see my modest little rhubarb plant emerge this year. I would love to have a rhubarb patch and harvest lots of rhubarb, but we don’t have room for that, so I planted just one rhubarb plant last year in a large planter in our teeny back yard. It produced just a bit this year so I only pulled a few stalks to make this cobbler. I’m crossing my fingers that it will be more robust and plentiful next year. I combined it with some rhubarb from the market and some raspberries, fresh or frozen would both work.
If you haven’t taken full advantage of rhubarb season yet, this rhubarb raspberry cobbler is a good way to sneak in a bit more rhubarb before the season ends. I love the combination of the gooey, sweet-tart rhubarb filling with the pillowy biscuit topping. I think this cobbler is very pretty, with the big polka dot biscuits glittering with a generous application of sanding sugar, leaving little gaps for the just-sweet-enough rhubarb-raspberry filling to bubble and peek through. This cobbler should be served hot, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or drizzled with a little heavy cream.
rhubarb raspberry cobbler with buttermilk biscuits
filling
600g rhubarb, cut into 1” pieces
150g raspberries
150g brown sugar
3 tbs lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp + 1 tsp cornstarch
Toss all ingredients together in a medium bowl. Spread filling over the bottom of an 9” oval dish (or use a roughly similar sized round or rectangular dish - you may not need all of the topping if your dish is a bit smaller).
biscuit topping
2 cups (240g) all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
4 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup cold butter, cubed
1 ¼ cup (300 ml) buttermilk, chilled (or use milk with a couple tbs lemon juice
¼ cup large sanding sugar
Heat the oven to 425°F.
In the bowl of a food processor*, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Add butter and pulse a few times until the butter is in pea sized chunks. Add about 1 cup of the buttermilk and pulse to combine. Add a bit more buttermilk at a time, pulsing until a dough forms. You may not need to use all the buttermilk, or you may need to add a couple tablespoons extra if the dough is very stiff.
Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface, press it together into a rectangle. If the dough is crumbly, fold it over onto itself and roll out one or two times until it forms a cohesive dough. Roll it into a rectangle that’s about ½” thick. Use a 2-3” round cutter to cut biscuits out of the slab of dough. Place the biscuits on top of the rhubarb topping and brush with a little buttermilk. Sprinkle the biscuits with a generous amount of sanding sugar.
Bake the cobbler 35-40 minutes, or until the biscuits are puffed up and deeply golden brown and the filling is bubbling.
*If you don’t have a food processor, use a pie cutter to cut in the butter and stir in the buttermilk with a wooden spoon.
