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Diane Prather

Diane Prather's columns appear in the Craig Daily Press and Saturday Morning Press. You can call her at 824-8809.

I’m getting lots of use out of my “to try” file lately, which is a good thing. I’ve kept recipes in the file for years without trying them! But I’d like to receive more recipes from my readers. If you have a favorite recipe that you’d be willing to share, let me know.

Anyway, the recipe I tried this week was for an easy-to-make cobbler. It’s so good that I wish I’d tried the recipe sooner. One of my favorite cobbler dishes is made with a biscuit topping. Another has a cake-like top, and both recipes require some work. But this week’s “Extra Quick Cobbler” is made with a cake mix, and it can be made in a hurry.

The ingredients for the cobbler are: a cake mix, 1 cup water and a 16-ounce (or more) can of fruit with sweetened juice. That’s all. The cake mix and fruit are your choice.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-13-inch casserole dish.

In a bowl, blend the cake mix and water until the batter is smooth. (Don’t add anything else that’s on the box directions, such as eggs or oil.) Pour the batter into the casserole dish.

Open the can of fruit and pour it, juice and all, over the batter. Distribute the fruit evenly over the batter. Bake the cobbler, uncovered, in the oven for about 40 to 60 minutes (mine didn’t take that long). You’ll know when it’s done because the cake batter will rise to the top of the dish and will be browned. The fruit and juice will sink to the bottom.

Can you believe how easy that is? Serve the cobbler warm with whipped topping, cream or ice cream.

I used a yellow cake mix and sliced peaches. The inventory in my pantry is down so I had only a 15 ½-ounce can of peaches. When I poured the peaches over the batter, there weren’t really enough slices to cover the top so I opened a can of sliced pears and used about a half a can of those, too. I think a 24-ounce can of fruit would be about right.

What fun you can have with this recipe because you can use a variety of cake mixes and fruit. A white cake mix could be used with sweetened cherries (or, of course, other fruit). There are fruit-flavored cake mixes, too, such as strawberry and cherry.

The recipe suggests sprinkling the fruit with cinnamon or nutmeg. Enjoy!

Call me at 824-8809 or write to P.O. Box 415, Craig, CO 81626.

Copyright Diane Prather, 2010.