When I was growing up we had a few blackberry bushes in our backyard that produced the biggest, most delicious blackberries I've ever had. We would have fresh blackberries all summer, and then we'd have enough to freeze and enjoy them for the rest of year until summer rolled around again. The first summer we had the blackberry bushes my mom made what has become one of my favorite desserts; blackberry cobbler. Her cobbler is actually more of a crisp (oatmeal, flour, brown sugar and butter topping) although I didn't find this out until I was in college and I took a food and culture class for the honors program. For part of the class we had to split up into groups and each group cooked dinner for the entire class one night and we all got comment cards to "critique" the food. When it was my group's turn to make dinner I made my mom's blackberry cobbler. When I got the comments back from the professor there were a lot of "This is good, but it's not a cobbler." Well.... okay, sue me. That's what we call cobbler in my family. We're not from the south; cobbler is a fruit dessert with a sweet topping.
Oh well, lesson learned. I still love my mom's "cobbler" and that's my go to summer dessert. But that's not what we're here to talk about today (but don't worry, we will talk about it one day). This is recipe is for "real" cobbler. These are perfectly portioned in single servings but good luck trying to stop at one. You could make this with any kind of fruit you want. I made some with blackberries, some with peaches and then I went a little crazy and made some with both because I think peaches and blackberries go together like peas and carrots.
Mini Peach and Blackberry Cobbler
What you need:
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
Dash of salt
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
Brown sugar
Cinnamon
1/2 stick melted butter
Diced peaches
Blackberries (fresh or frozen, just make sure they're thawed)
What you do:
Sprinkle some cinnamon over the fruit and set aside and preheat your oven to 350*. Meanwhile mix together the sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and milk. Add in the vanilla and about 1 tsp of cinnamon.
Put one teaspoon of melted butter in the bottom of each muffin tin. I made half with muffin liners and half without and they both turned out great. If you need to transport these somewhere I would definitely suggest using the muffin liners though. Then spoon in two tablespoons of the batter on top of the melted butter.
Next, put some fruit in top of the batter. I put 4-5 diced peaches or 3-4 blackberries in each tin.
Sprinkle some brown sugar and cinnamon on top of the fruit. Bake for 20 minutes.
Let the cobbler that isn't in the muffin liners cool almost completely in the pan before removing them. Before you take them out run a knife along the edge to loose them then use a spoon to help lift them out of the pan.
Of course, a cobbler isn't really a cobbler without a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top to go with it.
I think you're technically supposed to serve cobbler with the fruit on the bottom, but I think it looked so much prettier with the fruit on the top so you could really see the colors.
