It’s blackberry season here on my side of the mountains (west coast portion of Washington State, for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about). As Sean says “I love living in a place where tasty snacks grow everywhere … for free!” Blackberries are the prickly, flesh rending, weed-of-choice for around here, and while they can be a massive pain if you want to, say, clear them off your property, if you have no problem with them, well, they’ll do all the growing you want for no involvement on your part. Then, from mid-August through September you can pick lots of tasty berries for free! Just your time, and the necessary sacrifice of a few threads (if you remembered to wear long sleeves) or some blood (if you didn’t), are required. We prefer to eat it with vanilla ice cream, and by prefer we mean “Why eat it without? It’s SO GOOD THIS WAY.” Most cobblers I’ll happily eat it without, but for some reason the blackberries just cry out for the ice cream. <shrug> Anyway, without further blather, here is the recipe!

Fresh Blackberry Cobbler

For Filling:

• 5 c fresh and very ripe blackberries
• 3 TBS Baking Stevia
• 1 TBS cornstarch
• 1 TBS lemon juice

For Topping:

• 3 TBS butter
• 1 cup unbleached flour
• 2 tsp baking stevia (or 1 tsp Truvia if you don’t have baking stevia on hand)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions:

1. Put the blackberries in a large bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice over them. Add the cornstarch and baking stevia and mix gently until the berries are well-coated. Leaking juices may make the powders go gooey and not show up as powder any more, and that’s fine. Just make sure it’s all well-combined without crushing the berries too much.

2. In a separate medium-sized bowl combine the flour, baking stevia, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add milk and mix until all gooey.

3. Pour the blackberry mixture into a 1 1/2 qt. casserole dish or an 8 x 8 glass pan. Dollop the topping over the top, spreading it a little so that each dollop is about the same thickness. Don’t worry about getting it all even or to entirely cover the top unless you want to–this is cobbler and it isn’t required :D.

4. Bake the cobbler in a preheated 375 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until the topping is nice and browned and the berries are quite bubbly. Remove from oven, let sit a little while, and serve warm with vanilla ice cream. Yum!