Old Fashioned Blackberry Cobbler Recipe
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This blackberry cobbler recipe makes an old-fashioned Southern Blackberry Cobbler recipe with a lattice top and pastry dumplings. Always a favorite!
I grew up having a definite love / hate relationship with blackberry cobbler.
You see, during the summer my sister and I would spend days with our grandparents while our parents worked. Our days were filled with all of the love and fun little girls could possibly pack into them – with the exception of the days when we knew we were going with Grandmother to pick blackberries.
Southern Blackberry Cobbler Recipe
My Grandparents’ land adjoined ours with our pasture in between us on one side. The other side adjoined my aunt and uncle with acres of trees in between. Along the line of the trees and just inside their canopy were Grandmother’s blackberries.
It seemed as if it took forever to reach them with our baskets swinging and dolls tucked under our arms. Grandmother would lead the way, usually humming or telling us about each plant, bird, or bug as we past it by. Finally, we were there. Outfitted in our long sleeves and thick gloves we would go about picking basket after basket of big, juicy blackberries. We knew there would be a cobbler for dessert after supper and most likely, if we picked enough, we’d get to help her make blackberry jam.
With the sun beating down on us, sweating under those gloves that were beginning to feel like they weighed twice as much as they did, and with scratches along our arms where the long blackberry thorns had worked their way through our shirt sleeves, I was ready to be done with picking blackberries. At this point I would convince myself that blackberry cobbler wasn’t that great after all.
And yet, when I caught sight of her blackberry cobbler on the sideboard during supper, I was quiet certain blackberry picking was worth it after all.
How to Make Southern Blackberry Cobbler
Here are the step-by-step photos showing exactly how she made her Blackberry Cobbler. You’ll notice when I made the step-by-step photos of her recipe (many, many years ago!), I used her cobbler pan. I made sure to snap a few photographs the other day when I made this blackberry cobbler again, this time making it in my medium skillet. This shows you that you can easily make it in either!
Start by making the dough for your cobbler crust.
Once your cobbler crust dough has been made, pop it into the freezer for a bit while you are making the filling portion of your blackberry cobbler.
I use my Mother’s cobbler pan that she gave me and that is just like the one that my Grandmother would use. It’s a simple, round stainless steel pan without handles that went with their Towncraft cookware. You can just use any medium-sized, heavy bottomed pan.
Clean your blackberries and put them in your pan over medium heat.
Pour in your sugar.
Add butter.
And a bit of water. Give it all a good stir and let it just do it’s magic.
Like this.
It should start to get thick and syrupy and absolutely scrumptious before the next step. The berries will be soft when you press them against the side with a spoon.
While your blackberry cobbler filling is cooking away, go ahead and roll out the dough for your crust.
I like to just roll mine out on the parchment paper that I wrapped it in for the freezer – there’s less mess that way.
Take one half of your dough and cut into 1/2″ wide strips. Then, cut again into about 1/2″ long pieces.
Now this is the twist in the recipe for Grandmother’s blackberry cobbler that I told you about.
Now just drop those little pieces of dough you cut up one at a time into the boiling blackberry dish.
This makes a delicious dumpling right in your blackberry cobbler that is out of this world.
Continue to cook, and stir gently until all your dough pieces have cooked in your blackberries.
Remove your blackberry cobbler pan from the heat and begin to place the second half of your dough in long strips along the top in a lattice pattern.
Place pats of butter on the strips of dough and lightly sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for about 20 minutes until the dough has lightly browned.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. I highly recommend grabbing your ice cream at this point and get ready with big ole scoops! 🙂
Here’s my Grandmother’s Blackberry Cobbler recipe. I hope you love it as much as my family always does.
Southern Blackberry Cobbler
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour
- 12 tablespoons (170 g) butter
- 1/2 cup (114 g) ice water
For the cobbler:
- 3 cups (432 g) blackberries, cleaned (about 24-ounces)
- 1 1/2 cups (297 g) sugar
- 6 tablespoons (85 g) butter
- 1 1/2 cups (340 g) water
Instructions
For the cobbler crust:
- Chill mixing bowl and pastry cutter in freezer for about 15 minutes prior to making crust.
- Cut the butter called for in the crust into the flour with a pastry cutter. Slowly incorporate ice water just until the dough begins to form.
- Pour dough onto parchment paper, divide and quickly work into two flat discs. Wrap tightly and place in the freezer to chill prior to using.
For the Cobbler:
- Combine berries, sugar, butter, and water in a heavy-bottomed pan.
- Bring to boil over medium heat and cook for 20 minutes. Berries will be soft when pressed against the side of the pan with a spoon. The blackberry mixture will also begin to thicken and become syrupy.
- Preheat oven to 425º F.
- Remove pastry for cobbler crust from the freezer and roll. Cut 1/2" strips in both portions of the dough.
- In one half of the dough, cut strips again to form individual pieces for dumplings.
- Drop the dough pieces into boiling blackberries and occasionally stir gently to make sure all dumplings are cooked, about 7 minutes.
- Remove cobbler pan from heat and place the second half of the dough in a lattice pattern on top of the blackberries. Place pieces of butter on top of the lattice crust and sprinkle with sugar.
- Place into oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Enjoy!
Robyn xo
From the Add a Pinch recipe archives. Originally published 2011.
I’m gonna give this a try for my husband. Hope I can get it close to his mother’s. What kind of pan do you use? Not sure what a heavy bottom pan that goes from stove top to oven.
Hi Kay,
You can use a variety of pans that work on stove and in oven.
I use a few different pans – I have my grandmother’s cobbler pan that I love to use at times. I also use some of my other cookware pieces – some stainless and some enamel coated cast iron pans like Le Creuset. I show several pictures in my post and you can see some of the different pans I use.
I hope this helps and that you enjoy the cobbler! xo
I loved this cobbler. My sister doesn’t bake that much and she killed it. She used the premade pie dough and it came out wonderful. I’m home visiting my mom and family in Oregon, but when I get back home to Maryland I’m going to make this cobbler for my husband and kids, I know they’ll love it as much as I do. This us my new cobbler recipe. Thanks you for this recipe
Thanks so much Stacey! xo
My daughter made this for me for my birthday. I had wanted something like my grandma made and this was AT LEAST as good, if not better, then anything in my memory! Every single bite tastes like heaven to me. Thank you for making this recipe public!
Joy,
Thank you so much for this comment. I’m so happy to bring back memories of great food, especially from a mother or grandmother! Happy Birthday! xo
This is so close to my mom’s recipe. She would make a crust over the whole pie and bake it she also put pats of butter on the crust before bakeing. Once that crust was golden brown she removed it from the oven and pushed it down into the juice of the pie. She did this and couple more times and I could hardly wait for her to finish. I like my cobler hot as soon as it cooled down I would have a small bowl. That cobler made my day. I’m going to try your receipt and add lots of dumpling. It’s my favorite part. Thank you so much for sharing this. I to spent hours in the hot wood picking blackberries. And yes we all got red bugs. Lol
Thanks, Debbie, I’m so happy this cobbler brought back sweet memories of your mom. I think of my grandmother every time I make this. xo
This is right up the Southern husband’s alley…and in a couple of weeks we will be up at the Vermont cabin which has TONS of blackberry bushes. 🙂 xoxo
My first swing at this yesterday…and knocked it out of the park! My husband absolutely loved it! He said it was better than his mom omg! I love love love this recipe!
I’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed it, Tee! What a compliment from your husband!!! Thank you so much for letting me know you enjoyed it! xo
This is the way my grandmother made cobblers. I am so glad someone else out there knows the traditional southern method for making cobbler. Most of my friends think the cup of sugar, cup of flour, and cup of milk is a traditional cobbler it is good, but not as delicious as the traditional method. Thank You for posting.
Isn’t it the best Angela?! I’m so happy you enjoyed it as well! Thanks! xo
This looks delicious, and I want to make it; however, I have a question. The text says use the peach cobbler crust but the crust recipe for the blackberry cobbler is different from the peach crust.
Which should I use?
No step by step photos of this dough on the link provided. Just FYI!
I don’t know if the amount of water (1 1/2 cups) worked for anyone else but it made the cobbler WAY too runny. I even went back and doubled the amount of blackberries but still too much liquid. The flavor was good but that’s after discarding about 1 cup of liquid.
I’m sorry your cobbler seemed to have too much water. I’ve cooked this many, many times and not had an issue with it having too much water. The cobbler mixture should thicken when cooked at the temp and time in the recipe instructions. Hope this helps. I’m glad you enjoyed the flavor though. Thanks!
Hey Ann! I thought the same initially but I let mine just keep on cooking. It took an extra 5 minutes plus the 7 minutes after adding the dumplings and it turned out perfect!
The best blackberry cobbler I’ve ever made! I almost didn’t do the “dumplings” but I’m so glad I did! Yummo!! Thank you!
Turned out great!