Drop Biscuit Cobbler with Blackberries & Strawberries (Gluten Free)

Baking used to be something I did when I needed to be soothed. But this year, the things happening are beyond the edges of any kind of self-soothing. This year is full of things that make you unable to swallow anything for days, things that creep up and hit you just as you are relaxing into a meal, things that are wretched and disgusting and horrifying and make you drop the spoon and try not to choke on the back of your own throat.

And so I haven't baked since the holidays. 

This isn't a very good way to sell a recipe. I suppose we might all be better off right now if I had decided to gush about how baking is therapeutic, or given you a hyper-filtered photo of bubbling dough and oozing berries with a caption about making peace in the midst of grief and confusion. But though I've mustered a cobbler, I can't quite muster happy. This is all I've got. Everything is shitty but somehow I made a great cobbler. 

Gluten-Free Blackberry Strawberry Cobbler

As the NY Times informed us well over a week ago, the line between cobbler and buckle and crumble and all other bready desserts with baked fruit is fluid, even contentious. In my family, cobbler has historically been made with a batter that is poured over berries in a clean sheet, then baked into a thick, golden layer of pancake-like doughiness that invades the depths of the fruit underneath. 

This cobbler is different, topped instead with drop biscuits that form a raggedy, discontinuous crust that sinks down into the fruit but does not encase the berries. 

Ingredients

1 bag Pamela's Gluten Free Biscuit and Scone Mix* 

8 tablespoons cold butter

1 tablespoon honey

1-1/4 cup milk

*You can of course substitute any drop biscuit recipe here; you'll need 8-12 biscuits. If you are looking to make gfree drop biscuits from scratch, Shauna Ahern has several recipes on her site glutenfreegirl.com. 

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons gluten free flour (any kind, all purpose is best but others will be fine)

2 pints strawberries, tops removed and quartered

1.5 pints blackberries

Preheat your oven to 400 F. In a deep 9 inch baking dish (I used ceramic but glass is fine), toss your berries with 2/3 cup brown sugar and 2 tablespoons gluten free flour. Set aside. Prepare your drop biscuits following whatever recipe you are using. If you are using the Pamela's mix, this means using a pastry blender to cut in the butter until it forms pea-sized pieces, then incorporating the milk by hand. I added a little honey because I wasn't sure how sweet the dough was going to be. Drop biscuit-sized scoops onto the top of your berries--this can be quite haphazard--and bake for 25-30 minutes until berries are oozing and your biscuits are browned. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream.