Because not everything has to involve a can: Homemade Cherry Cobbler

I was rooting through the refrigerator today.  I was teaching K how to make a chicken pot pie and we needed the ingredients to make it happen.  The cherries I bought her about a week ago had shuffled towards the back of the fridge and I forgot about them.  "But I wanted to eat them, but they weren't washed yet."  I have to introduce her to the Duggar way of life with that.  The child is fully capable of washing her own cherries.  Anyhow, it left me with a bag of cherries that were a little too ripe for dropping in your mouth and eating, but not quite far gone enough for compost.  (Some were, but there were plenty of good ones left.)

What am I going to do with these?  I washed and pitted the cherries.  I wondered if a cobbler would be possible.  I looked it up on Pinterest.  Certainly it seemed possible, but everyone used cans of pie filling with the goo.

Um, I don't even like cherries and that seemed kind of gross.

I had to do an independent internet search for cherry pie filling and since I only had half of the cherries it called for, I just split the recipe.  On Pinterest, I found a recipe for homemade cobbler (not the dump method) and I was all about that.  Here's what I ended up with:

Cherry Cobbler Filling

1/3 cup raw sugar
2 decent T cornstarch
1/8 t salt
2 cups pitted cherries
3/4 cup water
1 T lemon juice
1 - 1 1/2 T vanilla*

Combine all in a saucepan, bring to a boil, cook and stir for 2 minutes until thickened and remove from heat.

(This is where I tell you that it called for additional red food coloring.  I skipped it.  Looked red enough for me and why would I want to add that?)

* This was my own addition.

Cherry Cobbler 

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup white sugar
3/4 t salt
2 t vanilla extract*
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup flour
Homemade cobbler filling from above

Preheat oven to 350 F.  It said to use an 8 x 11 pan, but I used a little smaller oval French White Corning ware dish.  Coat the bottom of the dish with Pam.  Cream all ingredients together except for cobbler filling.  Spread 2/3 of the batter on the bottom of the baking dish.  Pour cobbler filling on top and dollop the rest of the batter on top.  Bake for 30-45 minutes.  Cool, slice & serve.

* I was taught to always double the vanilla, so this has already been doubled.

Yum!

ETA:  It was delicious, but I admit that K ate my hunks of cherries for me.