The Easiest Mixed Berry Cobbler Recipe from The Food Charlatan. (2024)

Eric woke me up early on Saturday morning to tell me that our upright freezer in the garage had been left ajar, there was water pouring out of it, and it was beeping loudly.

Nothing like a thawed out freezer to start your weekend off with a bang, right?? Gah!

It really wasn’t that bad though. We are lucky and have 2 other smaller freezers, and were able to transfer almost everything over with some careful maneuvering. Good thing Eric used to play Tetris all the time as a kid. I swear that’s why he’s so good at fitting stuff into tight spaces.

The reason there was water pouring out of the freezer was because we had bought a big bag of ice at the store in anticipation of making some homemade ice cream for Father’s day. When the door was left open, all the ice melted and Niagara Falls came pouring out the front.

Then I forgot to buy more ice, but still really wanted homemade ice cream. So on Father’s Day I made the ice cream using all the ice from our ice maker, which wasn’t nearly enough. I threw in all the Otter Pops we had, and then got desperate and threw in a bag of frozen peas too. (We don’t shop on Sundays so I was trying to be creative. Also, I don’t call myself a charlatan for nothing.) It worked! Kinda. I mean so what if we had to ladle our ice cream instead of scoop it? Don’t get picky on me, melty ice cream is still delicious.

But back to the freezer rearrangements. The only thing we couldn’t manage to fit back in the freezer on Saturday was a few of those huge Costco size bags of mixed berries. They were mostly thawed out and needed to be used, so I decided berry cobbler was on the menu! It’s the perfect thing to make when your freezer breaks and you have a ton of berries to use up! This happens to you all the time, right??

Easy Berry Cobbler

I have to say this is the best “cheater” cobbler recipe I’ve ever tried. Eric and I stayed at a bed and breakfast a while back and they served this in the morning. I’d never heard of cobbler for breakfast but I was definitely not complaining. After I went back for thirds I finally decided to track down the cook, and she spouted the recipe off the top of her head.

Why is it called cobbler?

Cobbler is a dessert with fruit in a dish, where the top crust is “cobbled” or dropped coarsely in big chunks over the top, then baked. For this recipe, our cobbled topping is just a cake mix and butter. Super easy, super delicious.

This is a great last minute recipe because you can easily keep all these ingredients on hand. That way you don’t have to run to the store when you want to make it. Because I’m all about planning ahead for my unplanned dessert cravings. Here’s everything you need:

Mixed Berry Cobbler Ingredients

Quantities given in the recipe! Scroll all the way down to that recipe card, this is just to glance at when you’re making your shopping list.

For the berry filling

For the topping

How to make Berry Cobbler

This berry cobbler recipe is embarrassingly easy and SO delicious. You can skip right to the recipe or check out these tips and process photos:

1. Dump a bunch of berries in a cake pan. You don’t even need a separate bowl, I love it. You can use frozen berries, fresh berries, whatever you have. Mine were thawed obviously, but you can add them in completely frozen if you like. I happened to have about a 1/2 cup of frozen cranberries from the freezer fiasco that I threw into my cobbler. Really any mix of berries is going to work!

2. Add in a little bit of lemon zest and juice. This is optional but I really like the zing it adds to the final cobbler.

3. Add in some sugar, flour, and cornstarch to thicken it up. Mix it all together right there in the pan.

4. Combine some melted butter with a dry yellow cake mix and spoon it over the top! You can also just dump the completely dry cake mix on top of the berries, and top with the melted butter. (You can also cut cold butter and sprinkle on top). Any way you do it will work great! This is why sometimes people call this a mixed berry “dump cake.” Literally all you have to do is dump in the ingredients and you’re done.

Tips for making Berry Cobbler with Cake Mix

Serving this Mixed Berry Cobbler Recipe

With vanilla ice cream, that’s how. I’m telling you, it’s not optional!

We took this cobbler over to our neighbor’s pool party later in the afternoon after we got our freezer put back together, but didn’t have any ice cream. (I hadn’t made it yet!) Eric didn’t eat any cobbler because he said it just wasn’t worth it without the ice cream. What a snob right?

Should I share my homemade vanilla ice cream recipe next? It’s the best part about summer! Just make sure you have real ice and don’t use frozen peas. It really doesn’t work great. Ha!

So there you have it! This is not a fancy recipe by any means, and if you are having the Queen of England over for dinner maybe pick a from-scratch cobbler, like this killer Homemade Peach Cobbler. But since I don’t think the Queen is coming by my house anytime soon, I will take a cake mix berry cobbler for dessert any day!! It’s so good!

More summer dessert recipes you are going to love!

• Homemade Peach Cobbler << if you want homemade cobbler, this is the one!
• Easy Homemade Apple Cobbler << saying a tearful goodbye to peach season? Dry your eyes, it’s apple season, and we’re cobbling it up again.
• Easy Blackberry Cobbler Recipe with Oat Topping << Lots of nuts and oats! So good.
• Fresh Blackberry Glace Pie << just like the strawberry version you’re used to! It’s so good!
• Blackberry Lemon Cheesecake Bars << these are so pretty and a perfect way to use up fresh berries!
• My Mom’s Blackberry Pie << I grew up eating this for every occasion. We had blackberry bushes in the backyard.
• Easy Homemade Cherry Pie Bars << cherry pie filling ftw!
• Apple Crisp, With a Ridiculous Amount of Streusel << I love this recipe so much!
• Peach Apricot Slab Pie << nothing says summertime like a slab pie!
• Layered Pudding Dessert with Golden Oreos << I’m newly obsessed with this pudding dessert!
• Peach Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting << This recipe uses a cake mix too! It’s so easy and delicious.
• The Best Blueberry Cobbler from The Country Cook
• Lazy Raspberry Cobbler from Wyse Guide
• Mixed Berry Oat Bars from Ali’s Apron

I posted this recipe the first time way back in 2012 and have the horrible picture to prove it. I didn’t forget the ice cream even back then: