Guest Blog: Cherry Suprise

In writing the blog you get to recognize a number of your regular visitors. Some come every few days but there are those you see even more often. One that I see frequently is today’s guest blogger, Teresa from Can’t Stay Out of the Kitchen. When she sent me today’s post the first picture you see was placed at the end and I knew I had to move it up because it was so delicious looking. Check out Can’t Stay Out of the Kitchen and the post below from Teresa….

This delicious cherry cobbler is amazingly sweet with every bite filled with luscious cherries, nuts, coconut, and oatmeal. It’s also incredibly quick and easy to put together. You can assemble this wonderful dessert in about 5-8 minutes. The delicious combination of flavors is simply amazing. Everyone in our household loves this dessert and I think you will enjoy it too.

I write this post as a tribute to a very special lady who passed away a couple of weeks ago after a very courageous battle with brain cancer. Debbie Porter gave me this excellent recipe over 30 years ago when we met weekly with a few other families for Bible study while attending the same church in Largo, Florida. Debbie was famous for her fabulous desserts and this is only one of many I collected from her. We moved away in 1990, and although we hadn’t seen Terry and Debbie in decades, contacts on Facebook kept them in our thoughts. We are always reminded of Debbie whenever making one of her luscious treats.

We were very sad to see Debbie’s passing but I share this recipe with The Ranting Chef’s readers as a way to remember Debbie, her love and zeal for life, her huge smile, and something that tastes as sweet as she was in how she interacted with others! Enjoy.

Here I’ve mixed the oatmeal, butter, flour, brown sugar, and coconut.

Press half of the oatmeal mixture into a greased 9×13” baking dish.

Add 2 cans of cherry pie filling.

Add chopped nuts.

Spread remaining oatmeal mixture over top of pie filling and nuts. Bake at 350° about 35-40 minutes or until lightly browned and pie filling bubbles up thickly around edges.

Here’s a look at the dessert after it’s been baked.

Here’s a serving of this fabulous Cherry Surprise.

This dessert is not only spectacular in taste, but elegant and beautiful in appearance.

CHERRY SURPRISE

(Recipe from Debbie Porter, First Baptist Church Indian Rocks, Largo, FL)

2 cups oatmeal

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

2 cups flour

2 cans cherry pie filling

1 ½ cups brown sugar (or 1 cup if you don’t want this quite so sweet)

1 cup coconut

1 cup chopped nuts, any kind will do

Mix all ingredients together, EXCEPT nuts and pie filling. Take ¾ of the mixture and put it on the bottom of a greased 9×13” pan. Press into pan. Pour pie filling over mixture. Sprinkle nuts over top. Crumble remaining oatmeal mixture over top of nuts. Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes until lightly browned and bubbly. Serves 12-15.

This dessert is just fabulous. If you like cherries, if you like coconut, if you like nuts, and if you like oatmeal you will love this cobbler-type dessert.

You will love this ooey, gooey cherry dessert.

Recipe from Teresa at “Can’t Stay Out of the Kitchen”