Blackberry/Peach Cobbler
A Taste of Childhood
I grew up on a small farm in Knoxville, Tennessee not far from the Smoky Mountains. Directly behind our house was a field that belonged to a neighbor that he had allowed to go fallow. What this meant in practical terms was there was a huge field of blackberries just outside the kitchen door. My father would regularly gather us kids, hand us empty paint cans, and lead expeditions back into the tangle of briars.
Picking blackberries should be unmitigated misery -- it's hot and you're wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants to provide some protection from the briars, which are both tenacious and tough -- except that we would eat the best of the berries as we picked them. After an hour or so we'd return to the house where Mom and Dad would package and freeze most of the berries for some winter day.
Conveniently enough, the blackberries ripen at the same time as peaches and we had a few peach trees. So Dad would fix a combination blackberry/peach cobbler for dessert that evening and to this day, as much as I love plain blackberry or plain peach cobbler, my absolute favorite is the combination.
Last week at the farmers' market I bought a basket of peaches and a carton of blackberries. The peaches were better than what we grew on that farm I was raised on, but the cultivated blackberries, although sweet, lacked the depth of flavor of the wild ones. Nevertheless, I made a cobbler much like Dad's.
I grew up on a small farm in Knoxville, Tennessee not far from the Smoky Mountains. Directly behind our house was a field that belonged to a neighbor that he had allowed to go fallow. What this meant in practical terms was there was a huge field of blackberries just outside the kitchen door. My father would regularly gather us kids, hand us empty paint cans, and lead expeditions back into the tangle of briars.
Picking blackberries should be unmitigated misery -- it's hot and you're wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants to provide some protection from the briars, which are both tenacious and tough -- except that we would eat the best of the berries as we picked them. After an hour or so we'd return to the house where Mom and Dad would package and freeze most of the berries for some winter day.
Conveniently enough, the blackberries ripen at the same time as peaches and we had a few peach trees. So Dad would fix a combination blackberry/peach cobbler for dessert that evening and to this day, as much as I love plain blackberry or plain peach cobbler, my absolute favorite is the combination.
Last week at the farmers' market I bought a basket of peaches and a carton of blackberries. The peaches were better than what we grew on that farm I was raised on, but the cultivated blackberries, although sweet, lacked the depth of flavor of the wild ones. Nevertheless, I made a cobbler much like Dad's.
Blackberry/Peach CobblerThe coriander is my idea, I think it complements peaches beautifully. Serve with heavy cream, whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream.
8 - 9 peachs -- peeled and cut into bite-size chunks
1 qt blackberries
1/4 c cornstarch
1/2 - 1 c sugar -- depending on sweetness of fruit
1 tsp ground coriander
3 tbsp butter
Bisquik
Heat oven to 425F.
Mix peaches with blackberries, cornstarch, coriander, and sugar in a large, shallow baking dish. Arrange pats of butter on top. Place in oven and cook for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, make up a batch of shortcake (as for strawberry shortcake) according to recipe on the Bisquik box. Remove casserole from the oven and arrange dollops of batter on top to cover. Return to oven and cook another 15 -20 minutes until crust is browned and cooked through. Serves 8.
8 Comments:
Fruit cobbler is one of my favorite things on earth. Easier than pie, though I probably think that because I don't particularly like making pate sucree, LOL
Dave,
If you use Bisquik it's even easier than that. But I love the flavor and flaky texture of homemade American pie crust.
Kevin, you and I are on the same wavelength these days...here in Maine it's peach and BLUEberry cobbler, every August as soon as the local (Massachusetts, but only a few miles from here) peaches and blueberries come in...the bluebs are here, and the peaches come next week...can't wait...(I'm with you on the Bisquick, by the way..)
Stephen,
We often seem to be on the same wavelength on food. One of these days we'll have to get together and cook.
And, yeah. I'm a blueberry lover as well -- though I tend to like blueberry crisp best.
Kevin
There's absolutely nothing like wild blackberries, and nothing like picking them on a hot August day, dressed in longsleeve flannel shirt, jeans and boots. I can't think of more fun than that,with of course visions of the blackberry cobbler that will soon be coming out of the oven. In the 70's we had a 40 acre farm in southern Michigan which was a berrypicker's paradise. High bush blueberries on the west side of the pond, blackberries on the south side of the pond, peach and pear trees on the hill, gooseberries, black and red currants, and rhubarb besie the chicken coop, transparent apple tree below the barn, and enough cultivated red raspberries to get sick on. Anyway, as anyone knows, on a farm, you can't always depend on everything bearing every year but one year it happened--everything bore to its fullest. But the best picking was the blackberries. I picked for 2 weeks straight, getting 2 dish pans full of those glistening blackberries every other day. Everyone I knew had to come and get some. The freezer was full of jam, frozen berries. But the best part was the cobblers, baked every day with dollops of cream from Silver Betty, the Jersey cow we had. (of course, I guess I might have to say that eating handsfull of blackberries out in the swamp while picking beats anything in the way of goooooood.)
Carol,
Oh, yeah.
Sounds delicious!
I also picked wild blackberries as a child (just the sort of project that my mother loved getting us involved in) and picking wild blackberries is work but there's a certain satisfaction in making things like this with berries that you've picked yourself.
Julie,
Yes there is.
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