I was so excited to try this recipe, chosen by Amanda from Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake . I absolutely love fruit desserts and hadn't had rhubarb in years and never cooked with it myself so this was something fun and new to try. The cobbler came together very easily, preparing the cherries - which we got a a roadside fruit stand, and the rhubarb - which we found at Meijer, was the most time consuming part. I was excited to try my new 14 cup food processor that arrived a few days ago out with this recipe. I'd like to thank Dorie for giving me an excuse to buy a second food processor, I wanted a bigger one already, and since so many recipes include using one I thought why not? Now I know you don't ever *have* to use one even if the recipe mentions one, but I wanted one :)
My cherry pittin' station -- see my pitter scissors? They are great!
My new 14 cup food processor, making some "moist clumps and curds" as directed, it's so obedient :)
Taste testers for the evening were my children, myself, and my mom, I always invite her over for dinner when I'm doing a TWD dessert. My husband was working, and he missed out, because there were no leftovers! My kids loved it, I loved it, and my mom liked the fruit part but not the topping, I believe it was the whole wheat flour that really turned her off. I don't even know if she's ever had anything whole wheat other than bread, and she said it reminded her of a piece of whole wheat bread on top...totally not what I thought but we have very different tastes. It was a tad healthy tasting, but homey healthy, not boring gag me healthy.
My super silly two year old taste tester, he absolutely loved this dessert and asked for seconds and thirds! Look at all that cobbler on his face, what a little messy mess :)
I really enjoyed the combo of cherries and rhubarb in this dessert, but I woulnd't hesitate to make with just cherries, I think that would work out fine too. My only change to the recipe was to add 1/2 cup of sugar to the fruit mixture instead of 1/3 -- I almost added 2/3 but didn't want it to be too sweet. Why did I change the sugar amount? Well, I hadn't had rhubarb in years, and years ago the only rhubarb I think I had was in prepared 
strawberry rhubarb pies, where it's all mushy, so I wanted to try a bite of raw rhubarb and see what I thought, WHOA was it sour! Now I know rhubarb is supposed to be a little sour, but my pack of rhubarb contained stalks of different sizes and colors, and to me most of it looked a little pre-ripe, so I added the extra bit of sugar just incase my rhubarb was tarter than it should have been.
Oops, I said me only change was about the sugar, I guess I did one more change and that was to cut my peeled rhubarb quite thin and not into the 1 inch pieces mentioned in the book. Why did I do this? I was just nervous about the rhubarb and didn't want us to not like it and have those big chunks ruin the recipe for us. I'm glad I sliced it smaller, since the kids have never had it I didn't want to scare them away from rhubarb and the smaller slices for us 'unconfirmed rhubarb eaters' were the perfect intro to that unique fruit, or wait, isn't it a vegetable?
Before going in the oven, I felt like I should flatted my puffs a little bit, I knew they would rise but not spread too much.
Ta-Da! All bubbly and beautiful, I had my oven timer set to check it at 35 minutes, and I ended up letting it bake for 40 minutes total.