Grammy’s Blackberry Cobbler Recipe

There is nothing like the waft of a fresh cobbler baking in the oven! For me that smell of love brings back memories of yesteryear in the vast country kitchen of my Grammy who must of had over 500 blackberry, blueberry and raspberry bushes on her 5 acre track of land. We would visit Grammy every summer for the month of August in her 150 year old farmhouse and it was bliss. Not only would Grammy allow us to roam freely across the land, catch fireflies in a jar, pick wild flowers a plenty, camp out among the stars and build forts too numerous to mention, she also taught us how to harvest the crops in her large garden and taught us how to cook, preserve and store the bounty.

One of the most delicious rewards for all of our hard work besides the fresh baked bread with just churned butter and jam, was Grammy’s cobblers which she always served with just a smattering of cold fresh cream. The love Grammy had for us was present in every ounce of work it took to produce a cobbler, made from scratch with fresh berries covered in dew, just harvested on a sunny late summer morning.

I share with you now my late Grammy’s recipe. Of course it is not as simple as many of the newer “Easy Cobbler” recipes that you may find, but the extra “work” (think of it as love) is well, well worth it!

Ingredients:

• 4 cups blackberries (if you are using frozen instead of fresh, DO NOT thaw)
• 8 tablespoons of butter total (one stick)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 tablespoons quick tapioca
• 1/2 cup of blackberry jam (if you don’t make your own, jarred is fine)
• 1 cup sifted flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 2 pinches of salt
• 3 tablespoons of milk
• 1 egg

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Take blackberries in a large mixing bowl and cover with about 1/4 cup of sugar, mix and let them sit for about 30 minutes.

Add in 2 tablespoons of tapioca and blackberry jam to the blackberries and gently mix.

Grease a 1 to 1.5 quart baking dish and add blackberry mixture. Cut 2 tablespoons of butter into little squares and dot the blackberry mixture.

Put in over and let cook for about 15 minutes until it is bubbly.

While the blackberry mixture is baking, make the cobbler topping:

In a large bowl mix the remaining sugar as well as the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix well. Cut in the remaining butter in cut in small pieces until mixture is crumbly. Finally, add in the egg and milk until they are well blended into mixture.

At this juncture, you have a couple of options. You could roll out the dough mixture and use your cookie cutters to make shapes to lay directly on the blackberry mixture, or you can drop, by level spoonfuls, the dough mixture across the top of the hot blackberry mixture.

Sprinkle entire dish with sugar and bake about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly.

Serve your blackberry cobbler with fresh cold cream like Grammy, or a nice scoop of old fashioned vanilla ice cream and of course, enjoy!