Blackberry Cobbler, Gluten-Free

Hi! We are enjoying our last few days of summer freedom this Labor Day weekend before school starts. As you know, I am not a fan of uber-early mornings. It’s not in my constitution. It’s not the way any of us in our family works well. Even when Girlfriend was tiny, she was a sleeper-inner. She was never one of those toddlers who woke up at the crack of dawn (thank goodness!). So the fact that we have to get up at 6 am in order to get Girlfriend to middle school (and into class on time as she works her way through the crowds of kids who are also wandering up and down the stairs trying to get to their classes) just about does us in. We spend the weekends recovering from the weekdays.

I realize that this sounds ridiculous. We do try to get to bed at an early hour. We don’t watch TV. We try not to schedule evening activities for Girlfriend. We try to ease into the bedtime. But, our bodies don’t seem to be easily re-trainable into early morning as one would hope. We do much better if we can go to bed at around 11 or midnight and wake up at around 8 am. Sigh.

Anyway, we are trying to get in all of the sleep we can in these last days. And in between sleeping (heh) we are enjoying the bounty of summer. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the side yard between our house and that of one of our neighbors is lined with wild blackberry bushes. Most of the year these bushes are a scourge. They are pokey and nearly impossible to tame. And they line the path that goes from our driveway to the back garden, so we need to keep them in check. They technically belong to our neighbors, but that house is a rental so the neighbors don’t really care what happens to them.

Instead of complaining about them (unlike my never-ending complaints about early mornings 😉 ), I decided years ago to cultivate them for our eating pleasure. When Girlfriend was little, I would send her and her pals over there to pick the blackberries. They would come back with as many berries in their tummies as were in their buckets (if their happy and berry-juice smeared faces were any indication of what they did). And I turn the blackberries they pick into cobbler. It’s one of my summer rituals. It just seems like blackberries and cobblers are the perfect match.

And I realize that I’ve never shared my cobbler recipe with you. It’s so simple and so quick to make, it’s one of those handy and perfect last minute dessert recipes. Of course, we usually eat the leftover cobbler for breakfast and for snacks during the day. But it is spectacular just as it comes out of the oven, with the biscuit topping puffed and golden, dolloped with unsweetened whipped cream. Of course, you can also use the equivalent amount of other berries that you have on hand.

Blackberry Cobbler, Gluten-Free

Ingredients
4 cups (500 g) fresh blackberries
1 cup (235 ml) honey
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup (145 g) plus 2 tablespoons Jeanne’s Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour mix
¼ cup (25 g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (55 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled a bit
1 extra-large egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons aluminum-free double-acting baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup (60 ml) milk
extra melted butter for pan

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F/190 degrees C/Gas Mark 5. Grease a 9 inch/23 cm pie pan (deep dish if you have it) or 9 x 9 in/23 x 23 cm baking pan with the extra melted butter.

In a large bowl, mix together the berries, honey, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons of flour. Dump into prepared pan.

In a small bowl, mix together 1 cup flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a medium bowl, whisk together butter, egg, and granulated sugar until well combined. Add the flour mixture and milk alternately, and mix with a spoon until combined.

With a large spoon, drop blobs of the batter on top of the berry mixture in the pan. You can either leave them as separate blobs, or spread the mixture so it covers most of the berries. Leave a border of about 1 inch around the perimeter.

Bake at 375 degrees F until the batter is puffed up and brown, about 30 minutes.

Serve hot or warm. We often add a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream on the side.

Store, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Note:  If you use a different gluten-free flour mix, alter the amount of or eliminate the xanthan gum, use dairy-free or egg-free substitutes, or change any other ingredients in this recipe, your results may not match my results.

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