My mother has a cupboard full of cookbooks but the one we most frequently pulled from her shelf when we were cooking or baking was her worn red Betty Crocker Cookbook. This cookbook holds many of our family favorites such as the apple pie we bake at Thanksgiving and Christmas and the buttercream frosting we use to ice sugar cookies. The lentil soup always warms the soul and the cream puffs never fail to please.
I’m not sure when my mom got her copy of the cookbook but I knew that I wanted to have a copy for my own kitchen. Unfortunately it isn’t widely available anymore–though you can buy a brand new copy for a pretty penny–and while I do have the updated Betty Crocker cookbook, it just isn’t the same.
Several years ago during a local Friends of the Library Sale I was rummaging through the cookbook section when I saw the muted red cover peaking out from under the pile. I gasped and excitedly grabbed the copy. I flipped to the pie section just to make sure it was the same and yup–Fresh Apple Pie. And several pages back–yup, buttercream frosting. It was mine.
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The cookbook itself is terribly outdated. The edition is from the 1970s and contains a brand new section for microwave cooking! (still cracks me up that people thought cooking casseroles in the microwave was a better idea than using the oven). Some of the recipes are outdated (jello molds anyone?) and the pictures are old-fashioned. But anytime I want a recipe for something ‘classic’ I consult old Betty. She rarely lets me down.
I was recently looking for a cobbler recipe as blackberries were on sale and I couldn’t help but buy half a dozen little packages. Some of you emailed me your own recipes for cobbler but I ended up consulting Betty to see what she had in store. I had no idea what to expect from the taste of the recipe, and while it is different from what I was originally expecting, there weren’t any complaints from the partakers!
Betty Blackberry Cobbler
Ingredients
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 4 cups blackberries or blueberries or any berry I guess!
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 3 tablespoons butter
- ½ cup milk
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400⁰ Fahrenheit.
- Stir together sugar and cornstarch in a 2 quart sauce pan and add berries and lemon juice.
- Cook fruit mixture, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and boils. Allow boil for 1 minute.
- Pour fruit mixture into a 2 quart casserole dish.
- In a small bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter using pastry knife (or fork like I did) until mixture resembles cornmeal (crumbly).
- Stir in milk and spoon dough onto fruit mixture.
- Bake until hot, bubbly, and golden brown.
- Gobble up over cold Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (or whatever ice cream you have)
Mmmmmmm. Berries.
Uncooked dough droplets. Probably like Bisquick?
The cobbler portion is more like biscuits than the normal cobbler you might be used to, but it sure was yummy. And the leftovers? We stirred the berry mixture into plain yogurt for a delicious after dinner treat. We actually love this idea so much that we currently have a cherry mixture on the stove cooking so we can then freeze for later for yogurt add-ins.
I have the 1971 Betty Crocker book. I got it from my mother.