Seedless Blackberry Cobbler

Tracy Knutsen

Seedless Blackberry Cobbler

We’ve been back to our favorite local farm and picked a couple of baskets full of huge, fabulous blackberries! It seems like forever since they were last in season. Time for an amazing Seedless Blackberry Cobbler!

blackberry picking

We went early, it’s so hot right now, and filled two buckets before we knew it.  The berries were absolutely enormous and so sweet!

blackberry picking basket blackberry picking win

We ate as many as we could, froze a lot and made this yummy Seedless Blackberry Cobbler.

My grandmother always made a seedless cobbler and it’s so good. Yes, the seeds have tons of fiber, but the older I get, the less I appreciate those seeds in my teeth. I’ll get my fiber elsewhere, thank you very much.  The other key to grandma’s cobbler is topping it with cream…fresh cream…from the cow to your bowl (almost). Now, I don’t have a cow, but I do have some Bluebell Homemade Vanilla ice cream and it’s a champion substitute!

Here is the recipe and the whole fun process follows!

Seedless Blackberry Cobbler

Filling:

4-5 generous cups of fresh (or frozen) blackberries

1-3/4 cups sugar (add more or less sugar to taste – we start with 1 cup, but always seem to take it somewhere between 1-1/2 and 2 cups)

4 T. flour

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

pinch of salt

3 T. cornstarch

Pastry:

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup shortening

4 tablespoons milk 

Directions:

  1. Put the blackberries in a medium sized pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let them simmer to make juice – about 20 minutes. Press on the berries with the back of a spoon periodically to release the juice.
  2. Pass the berry mixture through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds and pulp -mashing the berries to squeeze out all the juice.  Return the juice to the pot and add the sugar, flour, butter and salt.  Whisk until well combined and free of lumps.  Bring to a slow boil.
  3. Mix the 3 tablespoons cornstarch in one third cup water and add to the boiling mixture.  Whisk until thickened and glossy. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. You should have 4-6 cups of the mixture.
  4. While the filling is cooling, prepare the cobbler pastry.
  5. Blend flour salt and shortening using a pastry cutter or a fork until it reaches a course meal texture. Add milk and knead just until blended and the dough holds together. Chill for 30 minutes.
  6. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to approximately 1/8 – 1/4 inch thick. Cut into long 1/2 inch wide strips using a pastry wheel (I use a pizza cutter, or a knife, but this is fun, too!)
  7. Pour half of the filling mixture into a greased 9×13 baking dish. Lay just under half of the pastry strips across the top of the filling.
  8. Top with remaining half of filling. Use the rest of the strips to form a lattice-type layer or simply arrange them as desired.
  9. Before baking, if desired, brush the pastry with an egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 t. water) and/or sprinkle of granulated sugar.
  10. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes until crust is golden and filling is bubbling.
  11. Serve warm with heavy cream,  ice cream, whipped topping or whipped cream.


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Let’s get this blackberry cobbler in the oven!

The whole seedless cobbler process begins with extracting the juice from the berries.  After rinsing the blackberries, place them in a pot and add water just until they’re covered. Bring to a boil and mash the berries periodically with the back of a big spoon or a potato masher like this one.  After 5-10 minutes (when you can really smell them, you know it’s done) pour the mixture through a sieve and press the berries to get all the juice out.

Put the juice back into the pot and add the sugar, flour, butter and salt.  At this point, the cornstarch step is optional. It will depend on the amount of juice in your berries and how thick you like your cobbler. We like it more firm – not super runny – and always add the cornstarch. However, the cobbler will set up just fine with only flour, but a little juicier.  Once everything is whisked together and pretty lump-free, set it aside to cool a bit.  This is what it looks like (with cornstarch) before baking.

Seedless Blackberry Cobbler

(Up until this point, I was so excited about the blackberries, I forgot to take pictures! Blogger fail.  So I recruited my daughter to take a few shots during the process and help me to better document everything.  Note to self – think twice before allowing your daughter free rein with the camera!)

In the meantime, get started on the pastry. Many cobblers use a drop crust or a batter that you pour into a dish and add the berries to. Those are both super good, but this one is an actual rolled dough. Wait, I see some of you clicking away now.  It’s a very simple rolled dough. It takes about 5 minutes to mix together and another couple of minutes to roll out. No worries!  The key here is not to over mix or knead the dough too much after you add the milk. Cut in the shortening, add the milk, stop.  If you’re like me, I love crust. This pastry can easily be doubled to make your blackberry cobbler heartier or even just to make two cobblers.

Cobbler Crust

Now roll. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to about an 1/8 inch thickness. I roll between two pieces of waxed paper. (This is that part about the daughter and the camera…you get 145 pictures of yourself with a rolling pin – and you get teased for not using the handles.)

Cobbler Crust Rolling

Once it’s rolled out, cut it into long strips – about a 1/2 or so in width. I like to use a pizza cutter, but a knife or regular pastry cutter work, too. (You’ll also notice that your crust will taste better if you wear some of the flour while you work!) The awkward organic shape of the dough is fine for a casual, keep-it-in-the-family cobbler, but if it’s for company or the church potluck, something that more closely resembles a rectangle will yield more uniform strips.

Cobbler Crust cutting

We’ve even used cookie cutters to make to top layer of crust on our cobbler. These hearts and butterflies were for a peach cobbler last year.

Cobbler Crust cutout

Next step – build the cobbler!

Add about half of the filling to a WELL greased, 9×13 baking dish and lay almost half of the strips across the filling. Not too close together, and it doesn’t have to be fancy. This is going to be covered with more filling.

Seedless Blackberry Cobbler 1

Cover this with the rest of the filling. Don’t you just love the color of this stuff?

Seedless Blackberry Cobbler 2

 

Top this with the rest of the pastry strips. Here is where you can get creative, or not. A traditional lattice style works nicely here, but my strips weren’t quite long enough and I just pieced them together. Pastry dough rolled into a rectangular shape and with trimmed edges will create longer and prettier strips of dough to work with. On the other hand, this part of the process is super fun for kids to help with and it won’t matter what your strips look like!

Seedless Blackberry Cobbler 3

Seedless Blackberry Cobbler 4

Before baking, if you like, you can brush the pastry with an egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 t. water will make it shiny and golden brown -or- just an egg white will make it crispier and a more pale color) and/or sprinkle a little granulated sugar on top.

Pop the pan in the oven for about 45 minutes and you’re in the cobbler business!  This is best served warm with heavy cream, ice cream, whipped cream, whipped topping, extra berries, whatever you like.  I like heavy cream the best, but in a pinch, ice cream is the way to go. It’s basically heavy cream when it melts anyway!

Seedless Blackberry Cobbler

Cobbler has always been one of our favorites. This Peach Cobbler with Blackberries is near the top of the list, too!  And, as long as you’re feeling cobbler-y, try this beautiful, traditional Peach Cobbler.


 

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72 thoughts on “Seedless Blackberry Cobbler”

  2. The seeds always take away from pie and other things. This is a great recipe. Thanks 🙂

  3. I love blackberries. Blackberries and boysenberries are my favorite. This looks delicious and I wish I could just take a big bite right out of the picture!

  4. this cobbler looks so good. I love the taste of blackberries. Your idea to cut the pastry with cookie cutters is great…why didn’t I think of that?!? thx for the recipe

  5. Thank you for this recipe and instructions. My mother loves blackberries but can’t tolerate the seeds so I can make this for her now.

  7. Pingback: 25 Divine Blackberry Recipes

  8. I process my berries through a Victorio strainer. The seeds come out in almost dry wads, nearly all the yummy juice and pulp is extracted, much better than trying to squeeze it out by hand.

  9. Hate the seeds in blackberry cobblers . THANKS for this great recipe, will try it out next week.

  10. I have been looking for this recipe for many years. My grandmother made this when I was little (I’m 44 now). She never used a recipe, she just made it from memory. She passed 20 years ago and I have been looking ever since. Thank you so much for sharing this, I can not wait to make this for my children.

  11. How much juice was used? I have juice left over from making jelly I want to use for cobbler.

    1. That’s a great question! It varies a bit, depending on how juicy the berries are to begin with. If you begin at Step 2 with “return the juice to the pot” and proceed with the recipe from there, I’d say 3-4 cups of juice is plenty for the cobbler. There’s some wiggle room here. Really good idea to use your extra juice!

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