Blackberry Peach Cobbler, and my inability to stick to a recipe

Being blackberry season again, and given my near annoyance for making blackberry jam, I am somewhat at a loss on what to do with the massive amounts of blackberries that Phillip and I manage to pick. Other than, you know, eat them.

Phillip claims he can eat the many pounds we collect in one evening in that same amount of time.

Me? I want to bake, and preserve and bake some more. Mostly, bake. So when I stumbled across the Sugar and Spice recipe for a blackberry and peach cobbler via Pintrest, I had to try it.

Of course, I am terrible at simply following a recipe most of the time. So, apricots are close enough to peaches, right? And we had nearly a full case (5 kilos) left in the fridge, ready to be made into jam... it'll do, right?

Blackberries fresh and drying,
apricots waiting to be sliced and diced

In one evening, Phillip and I managed to pick four-ish pounds of blackberries. Four-ish pounds of beautiful, sweet, just ripe blackberries. A quick rinse in some vinegar water (a whole lot of water with just a splash of vinegar, really does help clean the fruit better than plain old water, and it has lasted me longer since I started doing it), then some plain water, and they sat to drip-dry until they were ready to be made into deliciousness.

Since I was making this for a Sunday afternoon lunch after meeting, I mixed up all the dry ingredients Saturday night so I could throw in the wet and bake on Sunday morning so the cobbler would be nice and fresh. 

And, again, to confess my horribleness at actually fully following a recipe, it called to have the peaches stoned and peeled. I have never peeled a peach, or an apricot. And I really didn't want to. So I just cut up my little apricots and left the skins on. Also, rather than mix 1 1/2 cups of sugar with the fruit (which I did the next morning), I used only one cup. It's fruit, and very ripe, very fresh fruit at that. And was intended to be consumed by children not used to eating sugar. So... why a whole cup and a half when it's sweet and juicy to begin with? And I used whole wheat flour when making the biscuits. We mill our own, so it's cheaper and healthier (though not nearly as fluffy or smooth as white or even store-bought whole wheat flour).

Mixing everything together in the morning and plopping it into the baking dish was super easy. And baking... oh how delicious it smelled! I set aside an extra, small, dish so Phillip and I could taste test some for breakfast.

And it. Was. GOOD. We drizzled a little cream on top of the hot cobbler and dug in. With hot coffee, it was a most delectable breakfast. WITHOUT coffee, it would be delectable. It was just... GOOD. The tartness of the berries, the near buttery sweetness of the apricots, and the savory plain-ness of the biscuits ... ohhhh.... it was so yummy. Most definitely a keeper! Even re-heated in the oven a few hours later as dessert for lunch (we ended up just sharing it with Phillip's family, as no one else made it to fellowship lunch that day), it was still just as good! 

Fresh out of the oven, the fruit still bubbles and steams

Along with the wonderful taste and aroma, I LOVE the colors of the fruit together

As it turned out, I don't think my little deviations from the original recipe made a real difference in how good this was. Maybe it's a little less juicy than the original (if you look at her pictures), but, no one who ate complained.