Blackberry-Peach Cobbler

    I wrote about our blackberry picking in Poor Folks Have Poor Ways. The plump gems we gathered have been waiting patiently in the freezer- those not snapped up immediately, or violently cobblered and devoured. That brings me to a question. What is a cobbler? As a child the only cobbler I knew consisted of a rich batter with berries tumbled in to bake up puffed and golden. And the corners! The corners would caramelize with all the swimming butter and my Pop and I would fight over who got them. It wasn't unusual to find a fresh pan of cobbler with all four corners missing and the centers yet untouched. But then I grew up and found that some folks said a cobbler was a 9x13 pan of fruit covered with pastry crust. 'Scuse me, but isn't that just a whompin' big pie?! And I know it can't be just a regional thing, because I am a born and bred Arkansan, my Moma was born in south Texas, my Pop was born in North Carolina, and my Dearest Friend was born in Michigan.  We all say cobbler is made with batter. 
    I mean to say, you can have a pie just about any plain time. Even during Reconstruction, and in the Great Depression, if you had flour and lard you could make a pie of some sort. But, now, a cobbler....well, that's almost a rich man's baking, a "time's are fine" kind of dessert. Lots of butter, milk, eggs- beautiful ingredients that were often hoarded until a sufficiently significant occasion arose. Yep. Cobbler has to be a little more special than just a big, long pie.
     On this particular occasion I took out a bag of peaches I had frozen. These are some the hubby brought up from down south, and they were meltingly good. So melting that some had to be cut up and either cooked or eaten on the spot. Or bagged and frozen. So, a small bag of peaches and an equal amount frozen blackberries all thawing in a bowl. 

Now, cut you up a stick of butter into a 9x13 pan and stick it into an oven that you are preheating to 350 degrees. 
To make the batter-

1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
Mix all together, easy-peasy. When the oven is fully heated to 350 degrees, pull out your pan with all that lovely melted butter and  pour over your batter without mixing it in. (It's all that butter seeping up the edges that makes the fabulous corners!)

Now take handfuls of fruit and distribute over. If there is a ton of juice, leave it behind in the bowl.

Put the pan back in the oven and bake for at least 30 minutes. You want it to be dark caramel in the corners and golden in the center. You can stick toothpicks into the batter-y parts to check for doneness. Now you have to let it cool some or you will not regrow your taste buds in this lifetime.

Serve with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream, and remember, if you took the time to cook it, you don't have to share the corners!

"My earliest memory is making peach cobbler with my grandmother." 

~Rick Bayless