Jam jar cobblers are a fun farm-to-table dessert! I make these with Edible After School to sell hot at the Pescadero farmer’s market and I often use this recipe as a sweet-tart country finish for farm events….
The best thing about making these for farm events is getting all the kids together to make the biscuit topping. While the cobblers are baking away, I teach the kiddos how to make whipped cream (yes, I suppose this is child labor). I had one little girl who got so excited about the whipped cream that she insisted on being the server as well so she could dole it out to our 60 guests and make sure that everyone would get the exact same amount. Very fair of her, I thought. She was kind enough to walk around the tables with a huge bowl of cream and deliver a perfect dollop on the cobblers. Very cute.
But this cobbler pictured below was hers. It still cracks me up to no end because it’s something I would do – look at that generous wollop of a dollop! The cobbler, obviously just a vehicle for extra thick rich lightly sweetened soft and fluffy whipped cream.
If you cook the filling in the jam jars with the biscuit dough on top there will be shrinkage as the berries soften and the biscuit topping won’t poof up and over the jar – which is the way I like them. Notmartha (Megan Reardon) makes these to sell and as gifts and she bakes the filling and biscuit topping below the top of the jar so she can screw the lid on afterwards, which is also a great idea. But I think the country looking puffy cobbler is more preferable as a plated dessert. I cook the berries in a large batch on the stovetop, then fill the jars up to the first ring.
Once the jars are filled and cooled, the lids can be screwed on and refrigerated or frozen. When ready to cook, its best to heat ‘em up in the oven first (with lid off of course) and adding a scoop of biscuit dough overtop once the filling is hot and bubbly – the biscuit topping will cook much better like this. I have never had any jars break in the oven and I’ve made these hundreds of times. Feel free to add a little cornmeal crunch on top of the biscuit dough or use some fancy crystal sugar.
Hope you have fun with this recipe! it’s a great way to showcase fruit at its peak and it’s so much fun to make kids!
And Happy Valentine’s Day! xoxxoo
For all my GF friends out there, the biscuit topping can be made with Cup4Cup all-purpose gluten-free flour.