blackberries

Our neighbors have a blackberry bramble in their backyard and while they've been vacationing, they have given me free reign to pick until my heart's content. I've eeked out three quarts worth (barely a dent) and been prickered to death. Wicked bushes. Delectible berries. Worth every scrape and scratch.

Although we gobbled most of the berries right from the bush, a couple of cups were saved to make a dessert for my book club. I wasn't sure what to make but I needed a recipe for which I had all the ingredients and that wouldn't take me more than thirty minutes to prepare. I decided to take a chance on a this Blackberry Cobbler recipe I found on the All Recipes website. I was wary because most cobbler-type desserts I have eaten have been kind of dry and unmemorable. This cobbler was neither. It was embarrassingly good, and I knew it as soon as I popped it out of the oven. But I really couldn't take credit for it. It was the blackberries and the butter and the sugar. I had very little to do with it.

That said, I highly, highly recommend you make this recipe. (And don't be intimidated by the dough rolling - mine was a falling-apart disaster - or worry about pouring the sugar liquid over the dough/berry mixture before baking - it may look like a watery mess but I am sure that's what makes it moist and AMAZING.) However, I will suggest one important thing: Be sure you have a plan for this cobbler. A party. A picnic. A place to share it. Because if you don't, I swear you will eat the entire pan yourself. It will be the best entire pan you have ever eaten, but when you're crying over the bellyache you got from downing two sticks of butter, you just might regret it.