Strawberry Cobbler

Hooray for Summer!

Yes, I know that Summer doesn't officially begin until later this month, but tell that to the heatwave we've been having around here. And anyway, we've officially hit the unofficial start of Summer. No, not Memorial Day, the beginning of strawberry season at our local orchard!!

Today little miss, little man and I were joined by friends at the farm for our first picking of the season. Of course I forgot my camera at home, but suffice it to say that a good time was had by all, and all of the kids (except for the one not eating solid foods yet) left with fingers and faces much redder, juicier and stickier than they when they arrived.

We left with a pretty good haul of these beauties. I actually think that the strawberries were even better than last year's crop. Something about the drenching rains followed by blistering heat really worked for them, I'd say. I couldn't wait to get them home and make something with them.

My first thought was pie. But we didn't pick any rhubarb this time, and I didn't feel like making a crust. Then I remembered my "Bisquick" sitting in the fridge, and knew there had to be something yummy I could make with that. At first I was thinking of simply making sweetened biscuits and turning them into strawberry shortcakes. But we actually had strawberry shortcakes just a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted something different. But, you know, the same enough that I could use the "Bisquick..." So I set out looking for a cobbler recipe. I figured that finding a Bisquick-based cobbler recipe would be simple. Yeah. I figured wrong. Not that I couldn't find any, but it was actually surprising how many recipes appear when googling "Bisquick strawberry cobbler recipe" that do not contain Bisquick. Or strawberries... Oh well.

I finally found one that was so simple that I was quite shocked. Fruit, then a batter made of equal parts Bisquick, sugar and milk. Seriously? Yeah, I can handle that.

The most time consuming part of the recipe was stemming, hulling and cutting all of the strawberries. I just layered the bottom of my 9" x 13" cake pan with them until it was well covered.

Little miss helped me make the batter. I measured the "Bisquick" (from it's fancy schmancy zip top bag, where it's been sitting in the fridge) and she took charge of the bowl and spoon. The recipe called for one cup each of baking mix, sugar and milk. I was afraid that might be a little too sweet, even for me, so I under-filled my measuring cup of sugar, probably by about a quarter cup. Little miss mixed and stirred, then we poured the (thinner than I'd expected) batter over the berries. Then we sat and looked at it for a moment... Considering the recipe specified a 9" x 13" pan, I'd kind of expected the batter to, you know, cover all of the berries. Which it didn't. At all. So I quickly measured out another half portion of each ingredient (again, kind of under measuring my half-cup of sugar). A little more mixing and stirring, we poured our additional batter over the berries, and we were both much more pleased.

Half an hour later, here's what we saw:










All bubbly and strawberry-juicy-oozey. And it smelled fantastic.

So as I did the dinner dishes, I actually popped the cobbler back into the oven to re-heat and brown up a teeny bit more, and we had a very delicious dessert tonight. We each topped our piece with some whipped cream, and then each proceeded to devour our piece. And one or more of us may have licked our plates...

Not that I will discard my previous cobbler recipe, but this is a definitely keeper. I can't wait to try it with each fruit as it comes into season!

Strawberry Cobbler

(from Cooks.com)

2 quarts strawberries (or whatever fruit you choose for your cobbler)

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1 cup Bisquick baking mix (or homemade substitute)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread the fruit into a greased 9" x 13" pan. In a mixing bowl, combine the milk, sugar and Bisquick until slightly lumpy. Pour mixture over fruit. Bake about 30 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Enjoy!