After my move to an Oklahoma farm in 2002, I found wild blackberries growing in abundance. Inspired by Martha Stewart, I decided to pick the berries myself and bake a blackberry cobbler for my family. (That's also when I learned how many chiggers there are in Oklahoma—what we call red bugs in Georgia. They seem to love feasting on berry pickers who don't know any better.)
I persuaded a couple of girlfriends to join me for a blackberry-picking outing, and we ended up with plenty of lovely berries. When I phoned my mom—the culinary goddess of the family—to get Grandma Paulk's blackberry cobbler recipe, I got the usual answer: "Well, actually there is no real recipe." Yikes! My notes from that conversation look something like this: berries in water, sugar, bring to a boil, flour, shortening, milk. You get the idea.
The cobbler turned out great, and I was proud of my handpicked berries, but honestly, that was the first and last time I picked wild berries. Berries from the store or a farmers market are generally plumper and sweeter than wild ones. If you do use wild berries, you'll likely need to add more sugar. The last time I made this, I was short on time and didn't want to make homemade pastry, so I tried refrigerated roll-out pastry shells from the store, cut them into strips, and it worked beautifully!
Info
- Prep time: 20 minutes
- Cook time: 30 minutes
- Total time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 cups plus 1 tablespoon self-rising flour
- 2 cups fresh blackberries
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, cold, cut into small pieces, plus more for greasing
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup milk
- Vanilla ice cream, for serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Butter a 1-quart casserole dish or baking pan.
- In a medium saucepan combine the sugar, 1 tablespoon of the flour, berries and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, use a pastry blender or two knives to cut the butter into the remaining 2 cups flour. Stir in just enough milk to make a soft dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out on a lightly-floured board and pat into a square. Use a rolling pin to roll it to 1/2-inch thick. Cut the dough into 2-inch-wide strips.
- Pour 1 cup of the blackberry mixture into the bottom of the pan. Arrange half of the dough strips on top of the blackberry mix, placing them close together. Bake until brown, about 12 minutes, then remove from the oven and pour the remaining berry mixture over the baked strips. Arrange another layer of dough strips on top and bake until brown, about 15 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream.
Notes
If you don't have self-rising flour, substitute 2 cups all-purpose flour mixed with 3 teaspoons baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt.
