Archives for July 2015

So last Friday on our anniversary, I knew I wanted to do something fun during the day with Jude since Brandon and I were going out to dinner without him that evening. I couldn’t decide what we should do and then I saw on Instagram that Eckert’s was having a pick your own blackberry sale! I have a little summer bucket list written down and one of the things was pick your own peaches and blackberries at Eckert’s so I knew this was the perfect time to do both!

We headed out super early for two reasons, one – beat the heat and two – beat the crowds! We jumped on a tractor to head to the peach fields right away.

Jude thought it was more fun to throw the peaches, but eventually he figured out to put them in our box.

BTR lifted Jude into a few trees and once we had a few in our box, we got back on the tractor to head to the blackberry fields!

Jude LOVED watching the tractor.

We set our peach box down and then headed to the end of one of the blackberry rows.

This was much more Jude’s speed. He figured out how to pick the black (ripe) berries right away and started filling his box. He just went up and down the row picking and it was so adorable.

And to no one’s surprise, he did not like eating them… We finished filling up our boxes and headed back to the main area of Eckert’s to pay and head home.

Since we came home with 8 pounds of peaches and 7 pounds of blackberries I knew I had to figure out what to do with them all! I gave a bunch of blackberries to my mom but we still had TONS leftover. So I did a little recipe searching and settled on a blackberry cobbler! I’ve made crisps before, but never a cobbler.

Fresh Blackberry Cobbler

There seems like a lot of steps to this recipe, but I promise it doesn’t take that long and the end result is delicious!

For the Filling:
6 cups blackberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Pinch of salt

For the Topping:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and grease a 2 quart baking dish. Mix your berries with the sugar, flour, lemon zest, and salt and then put into the baking dish and set aside.

To make the topping, mix your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt) and then in a separate bowl whisk your wet ingredients (egg, buttermilk, butter, and vanilla). Then mix your wet and dry ingredients to form a soft dough.

Once mixed I used my favorite kitchen tool, my OXO cookie scoop, to place the dough on top of the blackberries. The idea is to evenly space the dough across the baking dish and not cover the fruit completely.

Place the baking dish in the oven for about 45 minutes, until the dough is slightly brown, the fruit is bubbly, and a toothpick comes out of the dough clean.

We served it with ice cream the first night I made it and it was DELICIOUS. I’m sure this would be a great recipe with any sort of fruit, not just blackberries.

If you have any blackberries on hand you should definitely make this recipe! I later found this recipe on the Eckert’s blog and I bet it would be been delicious to combine the two fruits. Of course I still have a ton of peaches leftover, so I might try making a peach crisp today or tomorrow. Happy day friends!