Dessert Shouldn’t Be Stressful

Last Sunday I was able to cross goal  #6 “Open our home at least once a month” off my list for January.  A couple friends from work came over and we had a really great time.  I made broccoli and three-cheese lasagna from Real Simple using this tomato sauce, both of which are amazing.

I was more calm about hosting than any other time we’ve had people over.  I used to get really stressed about making sure that everything was perfect and my cooking lived up to my food blogger reputation.  This time around, I tried to keep things in perspective: it’s about building relationships, not being perfect.  Nevertheless, I had just just enough control freak left in me to want to provide dessert.

Due to time (and possibly motivational) constraints, I didn’t want to commit to something too involved.  I also didn’t want to make anything that was going to serve a lot of people; there was only going to be 4 of us.  In the end, I settled on a recipe I’d made before: the Pioneer Woman’s Blackberry Cobbler.  Of course, I made some adjustments, as it’s an incredibly simple recipe and lends it self to a little bit of messing around.

Raspberry Cobbler

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 1 stick salted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup self-rising flour (or 1 cup AP flour + 1 ½ tsp baking powder + ¼ tsp salt)
• 1 cup milk
• 14 oz frozen raspberries, thawed
• ¼ cup sugar, for topping

Directions

1. Using paper towels, pat the raspberries dry as best you can.
2. Pour 1 cup of sugar and flour into a mixing bowl and stir  to combine.  Whisking in the milk.
3. Melt the butter in the microwave.  Pour the melted butter into the sugar/flour/milk mixture and whisk it all together.
4. Butter a 9″-ish pie plate (8″ or 10″ would probably be fine too).
5. Pour the batter into the buttered baking dish. Sprinkle the raspberries evenly over the top of the batter.  Sprinkle ¼ cup sugar over the top.
6. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until golden and bubbly.
7. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream