Of all the berries in all the forests in all the world, the blackberry is the one that makes summertime delicious. It’s not the strawberry. That one ripens locally in the spring. It’s not the blueberry. That one has such a long shelf life you can find delicious blueberries from as far away as Chile at the grocery store when it is winter here. Blackberries, on the other hand, ripen in the hottest part of summer and are at their most delicious picked and eaten right out of the briar patch. When they are in season—which is late June through July in the South—their sweetness and juiciness rival the best desserts of pastry chefs the world over.
There is nothing like a big, fat, juicy blackberry picked straight off the bramble. It once took my brother and me all day to hike six miles in the Smokies because almost every step of those miles was lined with blackberry brambles. By the time we got to camp, we were only choosing the biggest, most perfect berries we could find because we could afford to be choosy. (We started that day by eating a whole watermelon, just the two of us—my husband was appalled—but that’s a story for another day.)
I was an adult before I realized you could buy blackberries at the grocery store. I am not even kidding. We lived out in the country where there were plenty of wild blackberries for picking, and we would brave the yellow jackets to pick them by the bucketful for Mom to turn into blackberry cobbler. Stained fingers and stained faces were the uniform of summer, and I’m sure I ruined many a t-shirt harvesting berries from the brambles near my house.
Grocery store berries just aren’t the same. They look like the real thing, but you can’t taste the sunshine in them like you can a warm, big as the end of your thumb wild blackberry freshly picked. Every now and then, I give in to the temptation to buy a container of them at the grocery store, but I’m always disappointed. However, the next best thing to picking them yourself is to get them in season at your local farmer’s market, and we have a farmstand near us in Brevard that had the best blackberries I’d had in years last summer.
The second best way to enjoy blackberries—the first is to eat them straight up—is to turn them into blackberry cobbler. We talked about the history of cobbler in general and Dutch oven peach cobbler in particular a couple of years ago.
There are multiple ways to make cobbler. The most historically accurate way is to cook the berries, top them with a biscuit-like crust, and bake until the crust is nicely browned. You can also mix up a batter, sprinkle berries/fruit on top, and bake until the batter rises up over the fruit. Both versions are delicious.
I’ve got two Blackberry Cobbler recipes I use depending on what I’m in the mood for. The first is similar to the Peach Cobbler recipe I talked about last year. It’s starts with a batter that I then sprinkle about a pint of blackberries on top of. The crust bakes up around the fruit, and it has a bread pudding-like consistency.
The recipe I use is based on the one by The Pioneer Woman.
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) melted
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup self rising flour
1 cup milk
2 cup blackberries
Combine 1 cup sugar and flour. Stir in milk first and then butter, and pour into a baking dish. (I used a large deep dish pie plate. A 9 x 9 inch baking dish will work too. You’ll want to double the recipe for a 13 x 9 inch baking dish.)
Sprinkle blackberries on top. Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar on top of that. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.
With a more traditional cobbler recipe, the blackberries make a syrup, so this is a good one to pair with ice cream if you roll that way. I don’t, but you do you. (As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like for ice cream to touch my pie and prefer to have it in a separate dish.)
This my mom’s Blackberry Cobbler recipe that was her required dish to bring to a potluck in the summertime.
Barbara’s Blackberry Cobbler
For the blackberry filling:
3-4 cups blackberries
1- 1 1/2 cup water
2 cups sugar
1/2 stick butter
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2-3 tablespoons water
Place blackberries in a saucepan and add water to less than cover. The berries will release a lot of juice, so err on the side of less water. Add sugar and butter, and bring to a boil. Mix flour and cornstarch and add enough water to make a paste. Slowly add to the fruit and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour into a baking dish and top with crust.
For the crust:
1 cup self rising flour
3 tablespoons shortening
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1/4-1/2 cup milk
Cut shortening and 2 tablespoons of butter into flour. Add enough milk to make a wet dough/thick batter. Drop spoonfuls on top of blackberries and dot with 2 tablespoons of butter, cubed. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes until crust is brown on top.
To ice cream, or not to ice cream; that’s a question only you can answer.
It’s been hotter than Hades this summer, and I hope you are all finding a way to stay cool. Stephen and I are heading to wilds of Southern Alaska next week, so that’s our plan. I’ll report back with lots of pictures.
Until next time,
Karla
Enjoy your trip!
There’s a berry stand on Silverado that has THE best berries. I’m getting some blackberries today!