A blueberry grunt made with sweet-corn biscuit dough finished with a honey-butter glaze and flakey sea salt. It’s a simple and utterly delicious summer dessert that I like serving with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I say to make more honey butter than you’ll initially need, and that's so you have extra to drizzle over your portion.
If you’re one of the seemingly few who’s had a grunt before, you can skip over the next few sentences. But, if you’re like me and have no clue what a grunt is or how it differs from a cobbler or a “slump”, then here is what I found after some research. A grunt is essentially the same thing as a slump–which you actually may be more familiar with—but is different from a cobbler because it’s entirely cooked on the stovetop.
To make a grunt (or slump), you cook blueberries, sugar, water, lemon, and whatever other spices you add into a compote on the stovetop, then dollop dough on top and steam them into tender, fluffy, almost cake-like biscuits (similar to when making chicken and dumplings). A cobbler, on the other hand, is baked entirely in the oven and assembled all at once rather than in two steps.
Grunt vs. cobbler definitions aside, after a few failed attempts at a traditional grunt—or what I consider more of an “unaesthetic” attempt—I decided to do a little half and half. For this final version, I cook the blueberries on the stovetop until super soft and jam-like, dollop the corn biscuit dough on top, then bake the whole thing in the oven until the biscuits are perfectly golden. This gives the biscuits more of a crumbly, soft, and true biscuit-like texture which not only I, but the whole test kitchen enjoyed more. The honey butter and flakey sea salt is the cherry on top.
Tips & Tricks
• Don’t use a cast-iron skillet for this recipe unless you're confident the skillet is really well seasoned. This is because cooking with acid (lemon juice, in this case) in cast iron can erode some of the seasoning, which could alter the flavor of the dish, making it taste very metallic. I made this mistake with this recipe and can attest to this!
• If you don’t have buttermilk, use 1 cup whole milk plus 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Let it sit for a few minutes until it begins to thicken and curdle then stir together.
—Nea Arentzen
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