Last week was my birthday (hooray aging!) and Mom made me a boysenberry cobbler to celebrate. I went out to Sauvie Island and picked a lot of berries, so we found a nice big recipe online for the cobbler topping and went to work. Unfortunately I don't remember where we found it, but it was a decent recipe, thick and fluffy like biscuits. At least I'm pretty sure that's how it would have turned out if the baking hadn't been interrupted by a major boil-over of berry juice that caused Mom to declare it finished. It was close, but the bottom of the topping was still gooey and underdone. Yes, I ate it anyway.
The next day, as I was packing up to go home, Mom packed the cobbler up too and put it in my car, deciding that it was probably cooked enough that popping it back into the oven wouldn't be such a big deal. In all likelihood she was right, about the re-baking anyway. What was a big deal was the drive over a curvy mountain pass to get home. I pulled the pan out of its (thankfully) sealed cold bag and got down to the business of cleaning spilled berry juice off of the outside while the oven heated up. I was a little worried about the amount of juice on top of the cobbler topping, but it's not like I could do anything about it.
Twenty minutes later and my fears were realized. The top of the cobbler was blackened and crisp, while the under-side remained doughy and definitely not done. Crap spackle. It looks like my boysenberry efforts were all for naught because this cobbler has now stunk up two kitchens and still refuses to cook all the way through. My taste buds feel betrayed. Twice they were promised delicious cobbler, and twice they've been thwarted, and unless there's some sort of secret supernatural diet force at work (wouldn't that be cool!) they shall not be denied.
Friday morning finds me at the grocery store, picking up berries and dairy to make my own cobbler, but after the two-day-disaster of the soft and fluffy dough I'm more in the mood for something heartier than a biscuit, something scone-ish, and when it comes right down to it I'm only one person and I really should not be baking a 9" pie plate full of sugary goodness. So I took my berries home, dug out my 1.75 quart casserole, and began to put together a small, scone-inspired, cobbler. It was pretty tasty, and perfect for four dessert-sized servings.
Filling:
3 cups fresh berries (I used 2 cups of raspberries and 1 cup of blueberries, but pretty much any berry will work)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Topping:
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 cup cold butter
1/4-1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar to sprinkle on top
Preheat the oven to 400°. Mix the filling together and pour it into an 8.5" x 6.5" casserole dish. Mix the dry ingredients for the topping in a small mixing bowl, then add the lemon zest and stir. Cut the butter into small pieces and then cut it into the dry ingredients. Add 1/4 cup of the milk and then check your dough. It will probably be a bit dry, so add a touch more milk. You want the dough to just come together, so don't go crazy and dump all the milk in.
When it holds together, pat the dough into 1/2" thick pieces and lay them on top of the berry mixture. Sprinkle the turbinado sugar on top and bake for 35 minutes, until golden brown on top.
Recipe by: Kelly Sink
