“I call the woods around the farm Where the Wild Things Are, because great-grandmother Florine’s mimosa trees and great-grandfather Horace’s blackberries and muscadines have all volunteered and gone a little crazy back in there, where they are free to flourish. As a kid, we had wild blackberries growing along the edges of the ditch when Galilee Road beside our farm was a dirt road. When they were ready for picking, my cousins and I would fill our buckets with more blackberries than Nana could possibly use because we knew if we did, she would say, ‘Now, y’all done picked enough for me to make a doobie.'”
“A doobie is kind of like a cobbler, but it’s more akin to sweet dumplings. Serve warm with fresh whipped cream, vanilla bean ice cream, or a scoop of one of the gelatos on page 211. Once you take a bite, you’ll taste summer for real.”
Reprinted with permissions from Bress ‘n’ Nyam by Matthew Raiford with Amy Paige Condon. Copyright © 2021. Photographs copyright © 2021 by Siobhán Egan. Published by Countryman Press, an imprint of W.W. Norton & Company.
recipe 
yields
Serves 8 to 10
4 pints blackberries
½ cup Sucanat or sugar
2 tablespoons arrowroot flour or cornstarch
4 tablespoons cold butter
½ batch buttermilk biscuit dough (follows)
2¼ cups self-rising flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups buttermilk
Honey butter (follows)
¼ cup locally sourced honey
1 cup unsalted butter
Salt
Blackberry Doobie
Hot Buttermilk Biscuits with Honey Butter
Honey Butter (Makes 1 cup)
steps
Make the Blackberry Doobie
- In a large pot, toss the blackberries with sugar and arrowroot. Let the blackberries sit for 20 minutes, then add 1 cup of cold water and butter and turn on the heat to medium. Once the blackberries come to a boil, turn the heat down to a simmer.
- While the blackberries simmer, use a tablespoon to drop biscuit dough onto the surface of the blackberries until you’ve used up all the dough. Cover the pot and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until the dough is cooked through.
Make the Hot Buttermilk Biscuits
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine 2 cups of flour and salt in a bowl. Add the buttermilk to the flour mixture and stir until the dough starts to take on a tacky consistency (where the dough barely sticks to your palm when you lay it on top of the dough).
- Using half of the remaining flour, dust the surface of the countertop and turn the biscuit dough onto the floured surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out to the dough to a half-inch thickness, and fold over twice. Repeat twice, then roll the dough to a half-inch thick.
- Dip a medium-sized biscuit cutter into the remaining flour, shake off excess, then punch out biscuits from the dough (do not twist or turn the cutter). Place the biscuits on the prepared baking sheet. Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake the biscuits for 12 to 15 minutes, until the biscuits are golden brown. Serve warm with honey butter.
Make the Honey Butter
- Place the honey and butter in a small pan and warm it over low heat until the butter just melts. Remove the pan from the stove and allow the butter to cool for 10 minutes. Add a pinch of salt.
- Using an immersion blender, puree the hone mixture until the honey and butter combine and the color turns slightly lighter than the original honey color. Pour the butter into a pint-sized mason jar and seal. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.
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- Reprinted with permissions from Bress 'n' Nyam by Matthew Raiford with Amy Paige Condon. Copyright © 2021. Published by Countryman Press, an imprint of W.W. Norton & Company.
Comments 2
Excellent recipe. For extra layers of flavor I added 1/8 cup brown and a couple of drops of vanilla flavor to the blackberry mixture.
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing!