Sweet Cherry Cobbler

Nothing beats a bowl of warm, homemade sweet cherry cobbler on a cold, wintry Montana day! What makes our homemade cherry cobbler even better is that these cherries were all locally grown Flathead cherries. Obviously local cherries are not in season in the middle of a Montana winter though! Instead these cherries were ones we bought over the summer since our new little cherry tree only produce a whopping two cherries this year. We pitted and preserved the cherries over the summer to make treats just like this one throughout the winter. 

 One of the holiday gifts Little A got this year was a fun cooperation game called “Orchard” (you can find it here). The game revolves around harvesting an orchard full of fruit trees before the raven gets to them first. One of the trees is a cherry tree and it has sparked us into day dreaming about eating fresh, sweet Flathead cherries that we savor every summer. Luckily I remembered that we had a couple bags of frozen Flathead cherries in the freezer that would be perfect to satisfy our mid winter sweet cherry craving. Little A was so excited about our frozen cherries that she started nibbling on them frozen before they even had a chance to thaw! 

The great thing about this sweet cherry cobbler recipe is that unlike most cherry cobbler recipes it does not have a ton of added sugar. Instead, this recipe uses honey to add a little extra sweetness to the filling. Sweet cherries have enough natural sweetness that they don’t need all that extra sugar added in to the filling! 

Sweet Cherry Cobbler Recipe

The filling:

5 cups pitted sweet cherries, can be fresh or frozen 

3 TBS honey

1 TBS lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla extract (here’s how you can make your own!)

1 TBS cornstarch (I highly recommend this kind to guarantee it is GMO free!)

The Topping:
1 cup all purpose flour 

1/4 cup unrefined sugar

2 TBS brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 TBS butter chopped in small pieces 

3 TBS milk

1 egg

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place all the filling ingredients in a pan on the stove and heat on medium/high. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Heat until the sauce starts to thicken then remove from heat. Pour the filling into an 8×8 baking dish and set it aside.

2. Mix the flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Sprinkle the butter pieces on top of the dry ingredients in the bowl. Using a pastry blender (if you don’t know what this is, this is the one we have), cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.

3. In a separate small bowl, beat the one egg. Add the milk to the egg and stir until mixed. Pour the milk/egg mixture into the bowl with the crumbly mixture. Use a fork and mash it all together until a soft dough forms. 

4. Drop the dough by little tablespoon size blobs onto the top of the cherry filling. The top does not need to be perfectly covered with dough since the dough will spread a bit when baking.

5. Place the cherry cobbler in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the topping is golden brown. 

What’s your favorite way to use sweet cherries?