The Best, Easy Blackberry Cobbler with Sourdough Discard

This Quick and Easy Blackberry Cobbler is a delicious way to use up extra sourdough starter and is made with 100% fermented flour so it’s extra gentle on bellies!

Baking is my living, and I love spending hours working on a recipe, testing intricate pastries, manipulating and perfecting every detail in a dessert. But sometimes I need to be able to lean on an easy and reliable staple, a delicious recipe that relies on throwing a few simple ingredients in a bowl and knowing they’re going to turn into a tried and true family favorite. This easy blackberry cobbler recipe always does the trick! The ingredients are so simple, you can use fresh blackberries or frozen (Read about using frozen fruit in our Berry Pie with Frozen Berries post). I reach for it time and time again partly because it comes together so quickly, and partly because it receives more praise than many more involved recipes. Dump a big spoonful of still warm, golden brown cobbler on top of vanilla ice cream and I think you’ll agree that it’s just about perfect!

Why You’ll Love this Easy Blackberry Cobbler Recipe

It’s So Easy to Assemble

To begin assembling this easy recipe, you will melt butter in your baking dish by sticking it in the preheated oven for a few minutes. Then begin to add the layers on top, first the fruit filling followed by the cobbler dough. The melted butter helps form a crisp and buttery golden brown crust that goes perfectly with the delicious, tart blackberries!

Enjoy All the Goodness of Sourdough

What makes this sourdough cobbler truly special is that it’s made with 100% sourdough discard, so all of the flour is fermented and gentler on the belly. Many sourdough discard recipes are designed only to use up excess unfed sourdough starter. In these recipes, you’ll add regular flour and bake without allowing time for the fresh flour to ferment. The advantage of using only sourdough starter without adding additional flour, is that you get the full benefit of consuming fermented grains. The cobbler dough will be more tender and flavorful, and your gut will be happier!

This easy blackberry cobbler recipe is also a great way to use up extra discard that you might have building up. I recommend using discard that has been setting no more than 24 hours at room temperature, or no more than one week in the refrigerator. Otherwise, the cobbler dough can become overly strong tasting and sour. As long as your starter is relatively fresh, the sweetness from the other ingredients will likely mask the flavor of the sourdough.

What Type of Flour Should I Feed My Sourdough Starter?

I would recommend using a sourdough starter discard that has most recently been fed with all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour, although your starter will always be a bit of a mixed bag and that’s When making fruit cobbler, I like to avoid using flours with high gluten content, such as bread flour, which can make the crust tough.

Don’t Have a Sourdough Starter? That’s Ok!

This delicious blackberry cobbler recipe can also be made without any sourdough starter discard. All you need to do is substitute the two cups of starter that the recipe calls for with 1 cup flour and 1 cup whole milk. That’s it! Follow the same assembly directions and bake time.

It Can Be Ready in an Hour!

Once again, like all good recipes this one is quick and can be thrown together when last minute dinner guests are expected. The hands-on time required to get this cobbler assembled an in the oven can be as little as five minutes. Another forty-five minutes in the oven and you can be enjoying warm sourdough cobbler with vanilla ice cream and as many friends and loved ones as you can fit around the table!

Gather Your Ingredients

The ingredients needed for this sourdough blackberry cobbler recipe are so simple and minimal.

Butter

Embrace it, love it, don’t replace it! Real butter is so important in this recipe and is responsible for much of the flavor in the delicious sourdough crust.

Blackberries

Fresh blackberries or frozen can both be used here. Also, this sourdough cobbler recipe works great with so many fresh berries or other fresh fruit! Sub in raspberries, fresh blueberries, peaches, plums, etc. Adapt your cobbler to the season or to what you have on hand. An easy peach cobbler with fresh peaches is delicious, especially with a scoop of ice cream.

Sugar

You’ll want to use regular ol’ white sugar here. Replacing with brown sugar, honey, or maple syrup can alter the amount of liquid and affect the texture of the crust.

Lemon Zest and Lemon Juice

This helps brighten up the flavor of the berries.

Sourdough Starter

The sourdough starter that you use in this recipe does not have to be freshly fed. Because this recipe relies on baking powder for it’s rise, the starter doesn’t have to be active and bubbly. We’re using it solely to ferment our flour and add to the flavor of the crust. However, don’t use starter that has been sitting at room temperature longer than 24 hours or in the fridge longer than a week. The flavor can become too acidic and ruin your cobbler.

Baking powder

Gives lift to our sourdough cobbler dough making it fluffy and light!

Salt

Balances the sweet and enhances all of the amazing flavors.

Putting it all Together

Assembling the cobbler is so easy! I always start by mixing my berries with the sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest and set them aside until the blackberries begin to release some of their juices. Mix the starter together with the dry ingredients and pour this right on top of the butter. It will begin to spread out a bit and you can give it a little nudge out towards the edges, but it doesn’t need to cover the bottom of the baking dish. It will continue to spread as it bakes. Next, just dump the berry filling into the middle cobbler dough. Spread them out slightly with the back of a spoon then pop the dish in the oven. Done! Once baked, a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side only adds to this recipe.

Making Easy Blackberry Cobbler with a Kitchen Scale

This blackberry cobbler comes together so easily, especially when you use a kitchen scale to measure out your ingredients. I can’t say enough good things about baking with a kitchen scale. Yes, it can help you with consistency and will certainly elevate your baking to the next level, but the real reason I use a scale is because it makes clean up SO much easier. Say goodbye to measuring cups; all of the ingredients go straight into the mixing bowl. This is really nice when you’re working with sourdough starter which can be sticky and difficult to measure consistently.

Weigh Out Your Ingredients

To use a kitchen scale, simply place a large bowl onto the scale and push “tare” or “zero”. Now you can add your first ingredient, such as your starter, to the bowl. For this recipe you would add starter until the scale read 400 grams. Before adding the next ingredient, you will want to take the scale back to zero by again pushing the “tare” or “zero” button. Add each ingredient this way until everything is in the bowl, then mix together.

Once you start baking with a kitchen scale you will never look back! I’ve taken so many of my older recipes and converted them to weights and it really does improve baking consistency and make the process quick and clean. Using the internet, you can easily find weight conversions for just about every ingredient you might need making it very easy to convert your own recipes. If you, like me, spend a lot of time in the kitchen, think about adding a kitchen scale to your tool collection! Here’s a link to my favorite! It’s accurate and super durable no matter how much flour I throw at it!

More Sourdough Recipes

Weekly Sourdough Bread

Soft and Fluffy Sourdough Brioche

Sourdough Pizza Crust

Sourdough Biscuits

Easy Blackberry Cobbler with Sourdough Discard

This Quick and Easy Blackberry Cobbler is a delicious way to use up extra sourdough starter and is made with 100% fermented flour so it's extra gentle on bellies!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 1 hour hr

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 12 servings

Ingredients

  

• 1 stick of butter
• 4 cups blackberries fresh or frozen
• 1 1/4 cup sugar / 250 grams
• lemon zest of 1 lemon
• lemon juice of 1 lemon
• 2 cups sourdough starter / 400 grams
• 1 cup sugar/ 200 grams
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

 

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place a stick of butter in a 9×13 baking dish and place the dish in the preheated oven to melt.
• In a small bowl, combine the blackberries, 1 1/4 cup sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest. If using frozen blackberries, allow them to come to room temperature before mixing with the other ingredients. Set this mixture aside.
• In a large bowl, add the sourdough starter, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk until well combined.
• When the oven is preheated and the butter is melted, carefully use oven mitts to remove the baking dish from the oven. First pour the sourdough mixture right on top of the butter, allowing it to spread out in the pan. Next, pour the blackberries on top of the sourdough mixture.
• Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 45 minutes until the crust is a deep golden brown.
• Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream 🙂

Keyword 100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread, sourdough dessert, sourdough discard