Hi,  I want to share this recipe with you.  It's a staple in my repertoire of simple family desserts.  I didn't create this recipe.  I read it in the Knoxville News Sentinel Food Section at least ten years ago.  I have, however, enhanced and modified it somewhat.  How?  Well, I've changed it to make it a little bit healthier.  

Not low calorie, mind you, just healthier, by substituting whole foods for refined and processed flour and sugar.

 

Here's the basic (UNmodified) recipe: 

 

1 stick margarine

1 cup self rising flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup milk

3 cups (more or less) of any fruit

 

For a family size cobbler, take a square pan.  Put a whole stick of good quality margarine in the pan.  (NOT the light, low calorie kind, which is watery.  You need full calorie margarine with a high oil content.)  

 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  After your oven signals it's reached 350, put the pan, with the margarine, in the oven and let the margarine melt.

 

While the margarine is melting, do the following:

 

Mix together one cup sugar, one cup milk (whole, low fat or skim, doesn't matter) and one cup self rising flour. Stir until well blended.  I like to add a little vanilla too.  

 

Prepare your fruit.  How much?  Well, I play that by ear and tend to use what I've got.   Optimally, for a family sized cobbler, you'll probably need at least  three cups of fruit.  You can use fresh, canned or frozen fruit (It's best to let the frozen fruit thaw a little.  I zap mine for about a minute in the microwave.)   If your fruit is not very juicy, you'll need to add a little liquid, to get a juicier cobbler.  I like to use white grape juice with just about any fruit.  It blends well with all other fruit flavors and adds a nice sweetness.  If you don't have juice, just use water.  And if your fruit isn't very sweet, add a little sugar to taste (a squirt of lemon juice is good too, especially if you're using a bland fruit like blueberries.) 

 

When the pan is sizzling hot and the margarine is completely melted, take the pan out of the oven and quickly pour in the prepared batter first, followed by the fruit,    If you like, dot the fruit with a little more margarine. You can even sprinkle with a little nutmeg (I like that on peaches) or cinnamon.  

 

Finally, pop the pan back in the oven and watch the magic:  the batter will rise to the top as the cobbler bakes.   Depending on how juicy, your cobbler may set and be done in about 30-40 minutes, or it may take a little longer, maybe even up to an hour.   As I said, it depends on how juicy your fruit is.  You don't want to over cook it,  but you don't want the batter to be raw in the middle either,  so just keep an eye on it.  

 

I like to serve it warm with either real whipped cream or an all natural vanilla ice cream ( Breyers Vanilla is good and has the added bonus of NO corn syrup…I'm a compulsive food label reader and Breyer's vanilla only has the good stuff…cream, milk, sugar and vanilla.)

 

This recipe is a winner.  Really, it's next to impossible to mess up and always tastes good!

 

NOW, if you want to make it healthier or even gluten free, as I do, you can make a couple of substitutions.

 

Instead of white self rising wheat flour, I use Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour.  It's not self rising, so I add one teaspoon of aluminum free baking powder to a cup of flour.  You can add a pinch of salt if you like, but  I don't.

If you are not concerned with gluten, you can substitute any kind of flour: whole wheat, oat, buckwheat, etc.  Sometimes, I like to mix up several flours.  I keep coconut, corn, sorghum, and rice flours in my freezer all the time.  Almond meal is a good addition too.   Some flours are a little more absorbent than others, so you may have to slightly adjust the liquid content.

 

I also substitute organic Sucanat for refined white sugar.  I do that in just about every recipe I cook now.  Have you heard of Sucanat?  It's dehydrated sugar cane.  The granules are very coarse, brown and irregular and it has a rich molasses flavor which I think is much more interesting than the simple sweetness of white sugar.  I may be fooling myself that it's actually healthy, but it is, at least,  a whole food that is minimally processed and retains all of the (perhaps slight) nutrients of the entire sugar cane.  

 

This recipe is a cinch to modify in terms of number of servings.  Want a smaller cobbler, maybe just for two?  Easy!  Just keep the proportions the same.  This afternoon, I made a very small blackberry cobbler for my husband and myself in a shallow little aluminum pie pan (in the photo.)  I used one third stick margarine, one third cup of milk, Sucanat and flour, and one third teaspoon baking powder.   I'm going to guess that today I used about a cup (or less) of frozen blackberries.   As usual, I didn't measure, I just used what I had.  We ate it warm and because I didn't have any whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, we topped it with a little bit of vanilla yogurt.  Yes, it's good with yogurt too.   In fact, it's just plain good! 

 

By the way, cold left overs make a terrific breakfast with yogurt, a sprinkle of granola and, of course, a big cup of hot, STRONG, coffee.

 

I hope you enjoy using this recipe, especially this summer, and all year long.  

 

Be Well and Good Luck, 

 

Martha Maria