Grandma's No-Fail, Super Easy, Always Delicious Cobbler Recipe

Summertime means berries. Strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, marionberries, blackberries, raspberries...you name them, and they are ripe and ready for picking during the summer. Some of the best berries are the ones you find growing wild and if you are fortunate to live where they do, you can enjoy planning berry hunting trips. Here in Kentucky, we have wild blackberries growing all over the place--even here on our farm. As I was growing up, I grew to love all sorts of berries, because my Grandma had blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and gooseberries on her property. LOTS of them. So our family was definitely a "berry" happy one!

When we get berries, I like to prepare them the same way my mom did when I was growing up--either freeze them whole, or make them immediately into a sweet, juicy cobbler. Everyone in my family back home knows how to make cobblers thanks to always having berries around--even the dads and uncles! And we all learned the same no-fail, super easy, and always delicious recipe passed down from the Cobbler Queen...Grandma herself.

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Do you want to know why I prefer cobblers over pies? Because they are EASY and ANYONE can make them. There isn't any dough involved. Just fruit and a simple crust. Another reason I love cobblers, is because you can turn pretty much ANY fruit into a cobbler. But my favorite cobblers are made from peaches, apples, or berries. When I say anyone can make them...I mean it. My boys help me make them all the time and if I gave Little Britches the recipe, I am confident he could make it without any help at all from me. It's THAT easy.

So let's get started...

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease your pan.

My cobblers are typically either a square pan, or a 9 x 13 pan. You will need double the ingredients for the larger pan. You can really make them in any size you want, I just happen to like squares and rectangles. LOL. Once you figure out your pan, go ahead and grease it (sides and bottom). You can use butter, oil, or my favorite--coconut oil.

Step 2: Prepare your fruit.

Fresh picked wild blackberries!

As I said, you can use about any fruit you want, but I have found that the best fruit, is the kind that makes a good syrup on it's own as it cooks. This is why I like berries and peaches most of all. You can use fresh OR frozen. Or you can mix fresh AND frozen. You can even used canned (I love home canned peaches in this recipe). I regularly use frozen berries. And have fun mixing them! My dad has this awesome cobbler he calls the "Blue Goose". He mixed blueberries and gooseberries for a fabulous sweet/tart treat. I like doing three berry cobblers myself with blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. If I am making an apple or peach version, I will sprinkle cinnamon, nutmeg and/or cloves over the fruit once it's in the pan for an extra flavor boost.

This is about how much I use in a square baking pan. I would say 4 cups.

For a standard square or round pan, I use about 3-4 cups of fruit, double that for a 9 x 13. Obviously this is going to vary depending on the type of fruit you are going to use. If it's berries you might need more, but if it's apples or peaches, you might want less. I like to have about 1"-2" of fruit in my pan before I add the topping, so I am eyeballing it a lot. Make sure your fruit is washed, sliced, and ready to go--then just pour it into your greased pan, spreading it around so it goes from edge to edge.

My favorite: Triple Berry!

Step 3: Prepare your crust.

One of the reasons this is an easy recipe is because of the measurements of the crust ingredients--just remember the number 1:

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

If you were making a 9 x 13, you could have it doubled, making it:

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

Now I will add, that my mom chooses NOT to double for a 9 x 13 and just has a light thinner crust over it. I prefer the crust to cover my fruit, so I always double it--or at least add on another half. You can see how easy it is to increase the size of this recipe, and how easy it is to remember!

Baby Britches loves helping me make the crust

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, stirring to get it into a crumby texture. It will not all mix up, but the majority of it will.

Texture you are going for

Step 4: Sprinkle your crust over the fruit.

Sprinkling the crust over the berries

Now it's easy--simply sprinkle your crust mixture over the fruit in your pan. I like to cover as much of the fruit as possible. Some people like to just make an "island" of sorts with the crust in the middle of the pan. There is no right or wrong way with this recipe. It will still taste delicious.

It's okay if your fruit shows, just cover most of it.

Step 5: Drizzle the top of the crust with butter or oil.

You can either melt butter (about 2-5 Tblsp depending on the size of your cobbler) to drizzle, or spray it with olive oil, OR my preference, drizzle it with coconut oil. Coconut oil just adds the best flavor with desserts. I use it all the time. It's also super good for you.

Ready for the oven!

Step 6: Bake it for 30-45 minutes.

If your oven is preheated, then it's time to pop this beauty into the oven and let the magic happen. You want to cook your cobbler until your fruit is bubbling and the crust is golden brown. Apples sometimes take longer to bake to get soft enough, but rarely do I ever cook it longer than 40 minutes.

A perfectly golden crust with bubbling juices

Step 7: Enjoy!

Once it is done, enjoy admiring the bubbling juices of your delectable fruit and savor the sweet aroma. Then dive in! It is a crime in our house to serve it without a scoop of vanilla ice cream. And the best part is you can spoon up some of those juices and pour it on top of your ice cream for a top to bottom treat! The cobbler crust gives it a nice little crunch, and the way the hot fruit melts the ice cream--yummy!

It doesn't get much better than this!

If you are ready to print the recipe and try it yourself, you can find my recipe here:
Grandma's No-Fail, Super Easy, and Always Delicious Cobbler Recipe

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I hope that you will enjoy trying out this incredible recipe. It's so easy and so good! My mom tried this recipe out at a summer camp one year on a grand scale. She made a couple MASSIVE pans of it and those campers fell on it like ravenous wolves, were rapturous in their praise of it's deliciousness, and it became a camp tradition every year after. So give it a try for your family! The more you make it, the more comfortable you will be playing around with different fruits for it, and I know you will be finding a family favorite before too long!

If you were going to make a cobbler, what fruit would you be inclined to try first?