I want to thank everyone for all the birthday wishes! I know I posted the other day but that post was set up to go off in case I wasn’t around, and I didn’t get the chance to personalize it. But I was blown away by all the e-mails, messages, Facebook comments, Twitter messages/replies, Instagram comments, etc, etc. that you all left for me. As a matter of fact, I had to turn the sound on my iPhone off! The notifications were going bananas. You all really know how to make a girl feel loved. You’re very sweet.

I’m officially 31 now, which either makes me the coolest 30-something in New York or a 30-something very much in denial of her un-coolness. Either way, I’ve got a new recipe for you. So let’s go with the former & say that this is the coolest cherry-berry cobbler made by the coolest 30-something ever.

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And speaking of sweet, cobblers are the easiest dessert to make, ever. I know I say that a lot. And it’s usually true- most people just assume because something is homemade it takes forever to make & is either complicated or difficult… and they’re wrong. Homemade stuff usually takes no more time or effort to make than prepared foods. But really, this time it’s 100% true. Cobblers require very few ingredients, very little mixing, and basically no little ahead-of-time preparation. If you use canned fruit- it requires even LESS than no preparation. Less than no… is that even grammatically correct? I don’t think so.

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Cobbler refers to a variety of dishes, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom, consisting of a fruit or savoury filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a batter, biscuit, or pie crust before being baked. Unlike a pie, cobbler never contains a bottom crust.

Cobblers originated in the early British American colonies. English settlers were unable to make traditional suet puddings due to lack of suitable ingredients and cooking equipment, so instead covered a stewed filling with a layer of uncooked plain biscuits or dumplings, fitted together. When fully cooked, the surface has the appearance of a cobbled street.^[1] The name may also derive from the fact that the ingredients are “cobbled” together.

In the United States, varieties of cobbler include the Betty, the Grunt, the Slump, the Buckle, and the Sonker. The Crisp or Crumble differ from the cobbler in that their top layers are generally made with oatmeal.^[2] Grunts, Pandowdy, and Slumps are a New England variety of cobbler, typically cooked on the stove-top or cooked in an iron skillet or pan with the dough on top in the shape of dumplings—they reportedly take their name from the grunting sound they make while cooking. A Buckle is made with yellow batter (like cake batter), with the filling mixed in with the batter. Apple pan dowdy is an apple cobbler whose crust has been broken and perhaps stirred back into the filling. The Sonker is unique to North Carolina: it is a deep-dish version of the American cobbler. In the Deep South, cobblers most commonly come in single fruit varieties and are named as such, such as blackberry, blueberry, and peach cobbler. The Deep South tradition also gives the option of topping the fruit cobbler with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream.

–Wikipedia

I am not above using canned fruit for a cobbler. In fact, it’s a really easy shortcut to use and if you do what I did, which is add fresh fruit to it, there’s no reason why anyone has to even know you used a can at all. I happened to have beautiful strawberries that I needed to use, so that’s what I added. You can also add some fresh blueberries or some fresh raspberries too. And by that same token, you can use canned blueberry pie or peach pie filling and add other fruit to those as well. You can use canned strawberry pie filling and add some fresh rhubarb during rhubarb season, too. There are tons of combinations and possibilities for this. Just be sure you use a can that’s 21 ounces, no less. You want a nice, thick cobbler bursting with fruit.

It looks spectacular. Tastes spectacular. And it takes like, 95 minutes total to make, including the baking & cooling time (which is roughly 80 minutes). That means total prep time is maybe 15 minutes. I made this a while back, yes, and people have been harassing me about posting the recipe since they first saw a sneak peek on Facebook. But due to summer activities I’ve been playing catch up with posts and somehow I’m a few weeks behind in posting. I think it’s because I have so many things I want to share with you guys and not enough days in the week! Someone get on that. Maybe give us an extra day somehow.

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CHERRY BERRY COBBLER

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup milk
• 1 21-ounce can cherry pie filling
• 5-6 strawberries, washed, hulled and sliced

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 275° F. Add butter to the 2-quart 8″ x 8″ baking dish (this would probably also work in a 9″ x 13″ dish as well, though it won’t be as thick) and place in the oven just until the butter melts. Meanwhile, mix sugar, flour & baking powder in a medium bowl. Add milk, stir until combined.
2. When the butter is melted, remove the dish from the oven and add the batter. DO NOT STIR. Add cherry pie filling randomly on top, again not stirring afterwards. Place strawberry slices evenly on top of the entire thing. Return to oven.
3. Raise oven temperature to 350° F and bake for 50-60 minutes or until cobbler is golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack for 20 minutes before serving.

It will seem, upon removing it from the oven, that there’s too much butter on top. There’s not. Let it sit for the full 20 minutes and you’ll see that the butter absorbs into the batter and makes a moist, delicious, cakey border for the cherry-berry filling. And as it cools further, the butter gets absorbed even more. Don’t believe me? Look:

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That’s why the 20 minute resting period is necessary. Everything has to settle & absorb & cool off just enough that you can eat it without suffering 3rd degree burns on the roof of your mouth. Don’t try and dig in as soon as it’s out of the oven. It won’t be set & it’ll make a mess. Have patience & give it the full 20 minutes it needs.

This cobbler is actually slightly more a ‘buckle’ than a traditional cobbler; especially in that the fruit lays more on top of the batter than the other way around. It’s also interspersed in the batter itself. It’s a beautiful dessert that comes together extremely quickly and yet yields a gorgeous & impressive result. It holds up really well, and gets better as it sits a while, so it’s great to make the day of a cook-out or barbecue. It’s just as good warm as it is room temperature. And of course, you MUST serve it with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. It’s mandatory.

I’m not at all a cherry or berry person (I did not make this for me), but even I can see the beauty & deliciousness of it. Come on. Seriously. How can you hate on this?

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Just a word of advice: because of the high butter content, it doesn’t really refrigerate well. The butter sort of re-formulates and forms a firm layer of, well, butter. So I suggest you make this the day you’re going to eat it or serve it. Or, perhaps chilling it and then heating it up slightly before serving it would be a better option. But seeing as how I didn’t try it, I can’t say.

Happy cobbling.