Dewberry Cobbler - Dessert for the Common Man

The dewberry season is about to be over and blackberry season will soon follow. Tricia and I got out and picked a bunch more the other afternoon and I have the scratched up hands to prove it.  Benjamin was theorizing why the biggest, plumpest, juiciest berries have to be in the most difficult places to get?  I mean, you almost have to be a contortionist, putting your arm in angles that are not normal to get between the thorns.  I told him that sometimes the best things in life are the things that you have to work the hardest to get.  Tricia made me laugh as she heard something moving in the bushes and decided she'd move to a different location to pick.  Some berries are easy to get, though, and arent' much trouble at all:

Right there for the pickin'

I told Tricia that I'm going to hang a bucket around my neck with a string so that I can use both hands to pick.  It'll go much faster and our productivity will improve.

That's a nice handful!

So what to do with some of these berries?  Well, how about a nice, warm Dewberry Cobbler?  Sounds good to me.  Reading through the Internet on various sites, I was looking for the reason that they call them cobblers.  I know cobblers are the old name for shoemakers, but what about this type cobbler?  Well, I learned that when the settlers came from Europe, they didn't have many of the ingredients they had at their disposal.  They improvised using what they had and a good example is the cobbler. Apparently they named it cobbler due to the crust that bubbles and forms an uneven surface, resembling the cobblestone streets that many of the cities and villages back in the old country had.

Tricia had a simple recipe she used that an old college roommate gave her many years ago:

Melt 3/4 stick butter in glass 13x9x2 pan.  Mix in 1cup flour, 3/4 cup sugar, pinch of salt, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 cup kefir or yogurt (or milk or cream), 1/2 cup fruit juice (i used pineapple juice).  Add 2 1/2 cups dewberries (or any fruit) on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar if you like. bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Here is the result of that amalgamation of ingredients as it came out of the oven, piping hot:

Mmmmm!

After supper, we got our bowls and spoons and lined up at the counter to serve up dessert.

Now we're talking!

A close-up shot:

A sight to behold, I declare

We were about finished with our first bowl when Tricia said, "I wish we had some homemade ice cream to go on top!"  I went to the fridge and did the next best thing. I poured the very top (the rich cream) off a quart jar of Daisy's milk into my bowl. You can see the result below.  

The world can be burning down around me and while I'm eating a warm bowl of dewberry cobbler, it almost appears that all is right with the world.

Fresh cream poured over warm Dewberry Cobbler

With cobblers, what you see is what you get.  There are no airs, no pretentiousness, no fancy garnishes like a fanned strawberry of even a sprig of mint.  It's just an enjoyable dessert for the common man - a man who might have his name on a patch sewn above the pocket on his work shirt, or a man who "brown-bag's it" to lunch most days, or a man who drives an old pickup truck, or a woman who washes and re-uses her Zip Loc bags, or a woman who doesn't have a frilly, lace apron, but instead cooks in a robe or old tee shirt. You get the idea, right?

Well, here's the damage assessment after me, Tricia, and Benjamin tore up the dewberry cobbler:

Leaving a job half finished?

So here's to the common man and Dewberry Cobbler!