Blackberry Pot Pie (an experiment)

Today, I invented something delicious. (Edit: my best friend, Sarah, tells me that what I invented is in fact a blackberry cobbler.  I feel less original.  Luckily I am comforted by the fact that I didn’t look at any recipes and what I made was extremely delicious.)

Okay, let’s backtrack.  My dad made breakfast for us every morning when we were staying with him, including weeknights.  Yep, hot breakfast.  One of the staple breakfasts was fresh biscuits with blackberry jelly.  Since then, I’ve learned to make biscuits – they don’t take very long, which is probably why he made them so often.  Today, while I was riding the train, I was thinking about biscuits and it came to me that an incredible delicious dessert or breakfast would be a blackberry pie topped with biscuits instead of pie crust.  Genius!

I’m sure this has been thought of before. I didn’t look at any recipes though and just kind of made it up as I went along, so I think I can say I invested it.  I named it Blackberry Pot Pie because the method is similar to how one would made a meat pie.

Blackberry Pot Pie

Preheat the oven to 400.

In a medium bowl, gently mix together

1 cup fresh or frozen blackberries
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
grating of nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Set aside.

Make the biscuits:

In a large bowl, sift together

1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

Cut 1/4 cup of shortening into it using a fork or a pastry blender until the shortening is well mixed in.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture that touches the bottom of the bowl.  Pour buttermilk into it until the well almost overflows.

Fold the mixture gently until it is of a kneadable consistency. If it is too sticky, add a little more flour.  If it is too dry, add a little more buttermilk.

Turn it onto a flour surface and knead it gently until it holds together, then gently pat it into a 3/4 inch surface.

Using a biscuit cutter or cookie cutter, cut as many biscuits as you can out of the dough, reconstitute it, and cut more out.  Try to handle the dough as little as possible.  As you are cutting the biscuits, lay them on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper so they are not touching.

Putting together the pot pie

As I’m only making two servings of the stuff, I used a 4″ oven-safe casserole dish, but you can adjust the size based on how much you’re making.  Grease the dish lightly to prevent sticking. Pour the blackberry mixture into the dish and place a few pats of butter on top (about 1 Tablespoon total).  Lay enough biscuits on the surface to cover it without overlapping biscuits (I was able to fit 3, which was plenty for two for us).

Put it in the oven for about 20 minutes (more for a larger batch) minutes, or until the blackberries are bubbling and the biscuits are lightly browned.  Allow to cool for about half an hour before serving.  You can just scoop it out with a spoon (make sure everyone gets a biscuit!).  We ate it all, so I can’t tell you how it keeps.  It was delicious, by the way.

You will likely have leftover biscuits.  You can bake them at 450 for 10 minutes or so and have delicious biscuits.  I’m going to attempt to freeze mine and bake them when I want biscuits – I’ll let you know if they’re good.

Update: 5/29/10 I just defrosted a biscuit for breakfast and it was great!  Now I know biscuits are a good thing to keep in the freezer, unbaked.