Featured Recipe...
Here's one that my mom always found a way to make during tough times. With this recipe it can be whatever you happen to have on hand that makes it special.
Simple Cobbler
If using fresh fruit, add 1/2 cup sugar to 2 to 3 cups fruit and slightly mash to release juices and let sit while continuing. You can also use anything left over, such as apple sauce, peaches, plums, apples that you really don't want to throw away but are to far gone to eat, cans of pie filling you might find on sale, pears your children picked from the neighbors tree, even ground cherries, etc...
Set oven temperature to 350 degrees. Put 1 stick butter into an iron skillet and put into oven to melt. (You don't use iron skillets? Just use a baking pan of choice. Takes about 5 minutes or so.)
Blend dry ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
(she only used King Arthur flour)
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
After blending well, make a slight well in the center of the dry ingredients.
Add:
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of milk
(Mom always used dry milk as it was more readily available. I found a dry cultured buttermilk mix that works great as well.)
Blend well.
Pour the melted butter from the iron skillet into the mixture.
Blend well.
Pour the entire batter into the iron skillet.
Pour the fruit of your choice into the middle of the batter.
Do not mix.
Put into the oven and bake for approximately 1 hour. It may take a little less time, check for doneness.
Your pocket book, your taste buds and your children will thank you!
Submitted by Carol Winters
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Note from Michelle... Hi Carol! We are big cobbler fans, being from the south, and make it in large pans as well. Your recipe can be doubled to make larger quantities for church suppers so I'm listing it under this recipe index too!
Recipe Update: 2/14/09 After we posted this recipe we had a reader write in to say she had a little trouble; when she baked the cobbler it turned out to be only 1" thick. So after talking with her a bit I decided to make up a quick batch myself to check it out and I'm happy to report the recipe is quite delicious! The only thing I would do is cut back on the sugar in the dry ingredients to 3/4 cup, possibly even less. I took a bunch of pictures of the cobbler I made and hope y'all enjoy them! :o)
The batter should resemble pancake batter when you mix it up, I also used almost 3 cups of cut up fresh apples for our filling. I suspect that is what the original cook usually did when she made this cobbler. Other fillings used may produce a thinner final product. And when baking, always be sure your baking powder is not out of date!
I would also like to add that as with many recipes, cooking this cobbler in the skillet is fantastic!!! I have two iron skillets that I purchased new and seasoned myself when my husband and I first got married, 23 years ago. Actually, one is that old the other one I think I added later on as our family grew. Anyhow, it really makes the cobbler extra crispy and delicious. YUM!
This particular recipe is very sweet though; much sweeter than most cobblers. As I said earlier, I think it would be perfectly fine to cut back on the sugar a bit.
Enjoy!
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