Not like my daddy made (because I don't remember how he made it)
This one has a cobbler recipe and it's pretty good
I made cobbler recently. It’s not something that I often make, or eat, or want, to be quite honest. It’s something that my dad used to make for potlucks or parties when he was feeling lazy, and I never particularly wanted to eat it, probably because there were always other desserts available, and there was Always Cobbler.
People leave all sorts of things behind when they die. When they die suddenly, they might leave behind the dinner that they were planning on making that night, and the cake that they had made the weekend before. I say “they might,” what I mean is “he did.”
I remember coming back to Atlanta, flying in the morning after he was killed, getting off the airplane, my mom hugging me and saying that I had my daddy’s back, which I can’t really speak to (I do certainly have his big forehead and hairline). I don’t remember anything from the rest of that day, until that night, when everybody was at my parents’ house that I guess was then my mom’s house, and there it was. The cake that he had made over the weekend for somebody’s 60th birthday.
My dad was dead, but this thing that he had made with his hands, this cake, something that exemplifies ephemerality, was there. Cake is usually no longer any good after four days or so (some people say three, but I’m brave), but somehow, the cake was there; the maker was not. People were passing around the leftover cake, and somebody asked me if I wanted some. I said I didn’t, because it was this cake recipe from the Joy of Cooking that he always made and I hated it. I hated that cake, and I didn’t like the filling that he made for it. I thought it was a bad cake, it was dense and dry, and the filling was like a cooked pineapple thing? I honestly don’t remember, I didn’t like it and I never ate more than a bite of it. But it was the cake that he always made for parties. It was That Cake.
Here is where I’m supposed to say “I’d give anything to eat that cake again,” but, that night, I ate a bite of the cake, and I still didn’t like it. It was almost disturbing, eating something that remained of him after he was gone. Is this how Catholics feel when they take communion?
Cobbler is another thing that he made that I never ate, but I remember looking at it. I can almost remember the feel of the pan that he always used to make it, an eternally dirty-looking pan with embossed diamonds that wasn’t quite 9x13. When there was a potluck at the friends meeting, he’d often make cobbler, and I’d hold it in the back of the car on the way to the meetinghouse. I don’t remember what his cobbler tasted like, I don’t know if I ever even had it, but I have such a profound memory of that moment, the warm pan sitting in a produce box, making the whole car smell like cobbler.
I never asked my dad for his cobbler recipe, because I never wanted it. Now that he’s gone (dead), when I think about cobbler, I think about him; and I think about his rules for cobbler.
It was really one rule: any cobbler should be able to be made with frozen fruit.
He loved fresh fruit (not that this is a novel trait, lots of people love fruit) but saw it as a waste for the purposes of cobbler.
Anyway, I tried to make a cobbler recently, and it was honestly shit, and think part of the reason is that they never tested the recipe with frozen fruit.
A cobbler ought to be:
Made with frozen fruit (STILL frozen fruit!)
Easy enough to knock together EXPEDITIOUSLY
Sturdy enough that you can take it to a potluck without causing major damage (to the outfit you have on, the back seat of your car, or the cobbler itself)
It should work, it should do what you expect it to do.
This cobbler was kinda the essence of highfalutin, you make a biscuit (repeatedly called a pastry) that you then CHILL for an hour (see rule 2), and you then cut the biscuit and make a lattice type thing on top of your filling. It was a lot of work, and the result was not particularly good, so I was filled with great resentment after making it.
Rule number four, I grant you, is a rule that is true for most recipes, but there are some things where I don’t mind fiddliness and complexities. A cobbler is not one of those things.
This cobbler called for all blackberries, which I think is the root of the problem, that and a fear of corn starch. Blackberries have a sentimental southern charm, they’re so purple, they scream of summer, but lord, they’re full of seeds, and when you bake them, what happens? They release a ton of juice, while also losing their integrity, so you wind up with no berries to bite into, and just a lot of seeds stuck in your molars.
My primary issues with this cobbler were that the filling was so wet, and the top was so gummy. To get around this I recommend a blend of fruits (blackberry and peaches works especially well, blackberries and strawberries that are sliced, not whole are probably good too) I’m trying the recipe this time with frozen blackberries and cherries because again, a cobbler should be made out of whatever you’ve got in the freezer, and I have a lot of cherries.
This is a recipe for a test bake that I did. The outcome was pretty good, but not ideal. If you want to get more test bakes, and more theory about how I create recipes, smash that like and subscribe. I’m currently
Cherry blackberry cobbler
Topping
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
5 tbs butter/shortening mix
3/4 cup (ish) buttermilk
Filling
2 cups cherries
2 cups blackberries
2 tbs cornstarch
3 tbs raw sugar (just because it was what was on my counter)
1/8 tsp almond extract
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375.
Make the biscuit: mix dry ingredients together, cut in fat, work with hands until it’s small crumbs. Add the buttermilk, add enough that it is gently tacky, and a bit but not a lot of flour clings to the side of the bowl.
Once the mass adheres, add a small amount of flour to the counter, dump out the biscuit mix. Knead together gently, then fold, flatten, fold, flatten a few times (this is how I get height and a bit of layers in my biscuits). Let it sit.
Mix the filling together.
Put filling into pie pan. Put biscuit on top. I used a little cutter to make… sort of parallelograms? Idk.
Here’s something I didn’t do that you SHOULD do: melt a few tablespoons of butter, butter the biscuits and then…
Sprinkle sugar on top of the biscuit. Then bake. Bake until the insides are cooked and the biscuits are lightly browned, I think this was about half an hour, but I honestly don’t remember. It takes a bit longer due to the fruit being frozen.
If you like a biscuity cobbler, this one will be good for you. It succeeded admirably at that, and I thought that the flavors in the fruit filling were really nice. A bit of almond and vanilla brings out the cherry flavor. I’m going to be honest, I set out to make an unbiscuity cobbler, and failed massively at that. This is only good the day you make it. The next day the biscuits are all dried out, and not very nice. It’s really nice after dinner though, or… for breakfast on the weekends? idk.
I might try it again, but honestly…. I’m just not that wild about cobbler.
Please forward to a friend who you think has terrible taste, and you are welcome to pay me human money for EVEN MORE of my unedited mumblings.