Thanksgiving is almost here. This year we are going over to my cousin’s house for the big family get together. Ellen and I like to come up with unusual and unique foods to bring to these affairs as they are pot luck with the hosts providing the turkey. I will probably bring several things like the cauliflower and rutabaga mash I made last year. But for the new item this year we decided we wanted to create a new dessert somewhat similar to a cobbler, but crossed with the lumpy biscuit top of a chicken and dumpling. Since there will be gobs of sweet biscuit dough on the top, we thought we would call the new creation a gobbler instead of a cobbler. It sounded like a fun tie-in to traditional Thanksgiving fare.
The first step to preparing this creature is to make some sugar-free refrigerator jam for the fruit filling. This part is really fun because it is super simple and an excellent way to make and enjoy jam without all that sugar. This is called a refrigerator jam because without all that sugar you have to keep it in the refrigerator. That sugar is toxic to bacteria just like it is to us, so it is used to preserve fruits without refrigeration.
All it takes to make refrigerator jam is fruit, stevia, and Ultra Gel. I like to use bags of frozen fruit like raspberries, strawberries, or mixed fruit, but you could use fresh fruit as well as long as it is relatively soft. I simply heat up the fruit in the microwave or leave it out to defrost. I then mash it up a bit with a potato masher and add the stevia a bit at a time until it has the level of
sweetness I desire. Lastly add in the Ultra Gel a little at a time until I get the thickness I desire. Ultra Gel is a commercial preparation ingredient for thickening jams, custards, and the like. It is just a fibrous starch that absorbs water and forms a thick gel. For this purpose I am creating the gobbler filling in its final form before I add it to the gobbler in order to minimize the flow of moisture into the bottom crumb crust.
The next step is to make the bottom crust. I like to make
a crumb crust from almond flour, coconut, butter, and Dr. Dave sugar. I take about :
1 cup of almond flour
½ cup shredded coconut
¼ cup Dr Dave Double sugar
¼ cup melted butter
mix these all well and pour into a 9X9 pan – double the recipe for a large pan. Pat this all down well – I added sliced almonds just for fun on top of this since I had a big bag of almonds in the cupboard.
Now pour enough filling over the crust to
cover it at least ½ – 1 inch thick. Lastly we make the top glob crust.
I actually use 1 bag of my Miracle Protein Bread to which I add ¼ cup Double Sugar, 2 Tsp. Vanilla, and 3/4 cup water.
Mix all this on high until well blended and then spoon out into globs and put them on top of the fruit filling like dumplings.
Put the whole creation into the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
As you can see this is a really easy recipe to play with. No special culinary skills are needed. It is not much more difficult than using store bought cake mix. With the gobbler I made to photograph for this newsletter, I had about a cup of fruit filling left over, which I put into a jar in the fridge to use as jam.
The amazing thing about this recipe, besides its taste, is that it has zero sugar and zero flour. It is down right good for you. That makes this a welcome dish at Thanksgiving – a guiltless dessert.