by Leslie Cox; Saturday, July 2, 2016

I cannot help myself. I love to try new recipes. Especially when I can use ingredients we have grown, or have foraged in the wild. In this case, I was going to use berries from our serviceberry tree, Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Princess Diana’.

Amelanchier x grandiflora…which is commonly called apple serviceberry…is a hybrid crossing between two North American native species: Amelanchier arborea (downy serviceberry) and Amelanchier laevis (Allegheny serviceberry).

Further breeding in the apple serviceberry species has resulted in a number of cultivars, such as our ‘Princess Diana’. Others include: ‘Autumn Brilliance’ (a very popular one), ‘Ballerina’, ‘Rubescens’ ‘Silver Fountain’, and ‘Strata’.

I will leave the plant details of our ‘Princess Diana’ serviceberry for the “Plants We Grow” section of this website. Suffice to say here…the berries on this tree are slightly bigger than those on either of its parents. And they are edible!

Now, John was really skeptical when I said I wanted to harvest the berries on our amelanchier tree because they really are quite small as berries go. (Have you ever harvested huckleberries to make jam?)

 

Not only that, but the birds were having a blast, feasting on our tree. Better the birds have those small berries than us having to pick enough for a cobbler.

Well…I only needed two cups of berries and there were really enough berries to go around. Especially since I was not planning on picking from the top canopy of our 15 ft (4.5 m) tall tree and there were quite a number of berries in the upper reaches for our feathered friends.

When it comes to food, John does not take too much convincing, nor does he shy away from trying a new recipe. He is a wonderful, willing guinea pig for my creative culinary experiments.

The two cups of berries needed in this case were quickly picked and we vamoosed from the area…giving space for the birds to return to their harvesting.

I will not go into the actual baking details here. Suffice to say, my Serviceberry Cobbler recipe turned out to be a huge hit with my skeptical guinea pig. So much so, he faithfully fulfilled his duties in assisting in the reduction of the cobbler to a few remaining crumbs.

 

You have to love it when you can harvest from your garden and produce a delicious treat. At least, I sure do!

If you are interested in my Serviceberry Cobbler recipe, you can find it in the “Recipes from Garden to Table” section under “In the Garden” on the menu bar. (Quick link: Serviceberry Cobbler.)