Cobblers and crisps are very forgiving. They’re perfect fodder for freelancing. You can mix and match fruits for the filling. You can add the topping of your choice. You can make them as sweet as you like. And everyone likes cobblers and crisps.
Cobblers and crisps are easy desserts to make—easier than pies. With pies, you form and shape top and bottom crusts and seal the edges. With cobblers, you cover the filling with a topping and you’re done. (Next Thanksgiving, instead of making so many pies, consider building some cobblers.)
The filling can be made with most fruits or a combination of fruits. Take apples and accent them with cranberries or raspberries. Take peaches and spike them with blueberries and slivered almonds. You can even take strawberries or strawberries and rhubarb and top them with a shortbread-like topping, or try a streusel-like topping. We’re partial to loading our toppings, both for crisps and cobblers, with nuts.
COBBLER TOPPINGS: There are several ways to build a topping for a cobbler:
Method 1: Building a cake-like topping
To build a cake-like topping, mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Add oil or melted butter to the liquid mixture. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture. Use a spatula and stir until the batter is combined. Pour or spoon the batter over the filling and bake.
Like all cobbler toppings, use a soft flour—pastry or cake four. (All purpose flour will do.) Don’t over-mix or the topping will be tough instead of tender and cake-like.
Here’s a cobbler that’s SO good and a good example of this type of recipe:
CRANBERRY APPLE WALNUT COBBLER
Filling:
6 large baking apples peeled, cored, and sliced (about 8 to ten cups)
1 12-ounce can apple juice concentrate, thawed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup dried cranberries
Topping:
8 tablespoons butter, melted
2/3 cup milk
2 eggs
2 cup flour
1 cup chopped walnuts
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1. Prepare the apples. The slices should be about 1/2-inch thick.
2. For filling, mix the apple juice concentrate, vanilla, cornstarch, and cinnamon in a large pan. After filling liquid is mixed, measure and add brown sugar. Stir until dissolved. Add butter.
3. Add the apple slices and cranberries and stir to coat. Heat over medium heat until the apples are nearly tender and the sauce is translucent and bubbly.
4. While the apples are cooking preheat oven to 350° and mix the topping.
5. In medium bowl, whisk the butter, milk, and eggs together.
6. In large bowl, mix flour, nuts, sugar, baking powder, and salt together. Make a well in center of the dry ingredients.
7. Once apple filling is cooked, remove the filling to an ungreased 9 x 13-inch baking pan.
8. Pour wet topping ingredients into the well in the dry ingredients. Stir with a spatula until mixed.
9. Spoon dough over filling. (It doesn’t need to be smooth; minor gaps in topping are OK.) Bake cobbler for 30 min. or ‘til top begins to brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Serve hot with ice cream or whipped cream.
Download this recipe.
Method 2: Building a free-form biscuit topping.
With the biscuit method, you cut the butter or shortening into the flour with a pastry blender. When the flour and butter mixture becomes granular, add the liquids and form the biscuits.
In the free-form biscuit method, enough liquid is added to make the dough soft and spoonable. Large spoonfuls are dropped on the filling. The result is a rough-hewn, shaggy top.
Tips for success:
Use cold butter—you want your butter to act like a solid, not a liquid.
Don’t let your dough get too warm.
Don’t’ overwork your dough.
Method 3: Building a shaped biscuit topping.
In this method, you use less liquid for a dryer dough. The dough is folded and rolled with a rolling pin on the countertop. Cut round biscuits and arrange them on the filling.
Method 4: Baking the topping ahead of time and adding the topping to the filling before serving
Instead of arranging the biscuits on the filling, place them on a baking sheet and bake as you would for other biscuits. This is a great make-ahead method. Just before serving, arrange the baked biscuits on the filling and bake in a preheated oven at 325° for 8-10 minutes or until hot.
CRISP TOPPINGS
For crisps, use any streusel topping recipe intended for a pie. For a simple butter, flour, and cinnamon topping, check out the toppings intended for Deluxe Dutch Apple Pie (recipe below). Many Brown Betty recipes are made with toppings similar to this. We’re in love with nuts so we usually choose toppings with nuts or oats and nuts. (Note: A crumble is a crisp—that uses a topping with oats and nuts.)
There's a reason this is called deluxe. It's loaded with sweet apples and brown sugar and then accented with sour cream. (We like to spike it up with cranberries or walnuts but those are optional.) Then it's capped with a streusel topping. (And of course, a streusel topping makes for an easier pie.)
DELUXE DUTCH APPLE PIE
Deep dish pie shell for a nine-inch pie
8 cups peeled and sliced apples
2/3 cup dried cranberries (optional)
2/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sour cream
Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Streusel
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1/3 cup cold butter cut into small pieces
1. Mix the sugars, flour, and spices in a large bowl. Add apples, optional cranberries, optional nuts, and sour cream. Toss fruit through the mixture with a spatula to coat.
2. Spoon the fruit mixture into the pie shell.
3. For the streusel, mix the all ingredients in a deep bowl. With a pastry knife, cut the butter through the mixture until it becomes coarse and granular. Spoon the streusel over the pie.
4. Bake in preheated oven at 375° for 40 min. or until topping is browned and pie is bubbly.
5. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.
Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
Download this recipe.
CREATING THE FILLINGS
Do this in one of four ways:
Method 1: With canned fruit
Use canned fruit with the juice for a quick and simple filling. To thicken the juice to a slurry, add a little cornstarch or flour as if you were making gravy. Add the spices that you like. “Church Potluck Cobbler” is a recipe that uses this technique (see recipe below).
CHURCH POTLUCK COBBLER
Filling:
1 29 ounce size can or 1 quart jar of sliced peaches in syrup
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Drain juice into a saucepan. Mix a little of juice with cornstarch to make a soft paste and add the paste to the rest of the juice. Add spices. Heat until bubbly, stirring as needed. (The syrup should thicken to a slurry.) Pour slurry and peaches into a small casserole dish.
Topping:
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350°.
In medium bowl, whisk the butter, milk, and egg together. Add sugar and stir.
Combine dry ingredients and add them to the liquid mixture. Stir until well combined. Spoon over peach mixture so that the fruit is covered.
Bake for 45 min. or until the top is a golden brown. Serve hot or cold. We prefer it hot with vanilla ice cream or even cold milk.
Download this recipe.
Method 2: With fresh fruit on the stovetop
Our favorite method—we can choose any mixture of fruits, the mixture as sweet or as tart as we like. We can control the amount of juice for cobbler with lots of sauce or one that is relatively dry.
Start a slurry in a large pot. We use fruit juices or fruit juice concentrates. Whisk in a little cornstarch, maybe some spices, and some sugar into the slurry. Give it a few moments to let the sugar dissolve and whisk it again. Add the fruit and cook it on medium heat until the fruit is tender. Add more juice or water as needed. Remove the filling to a baking pan; cover with the desired topping.
Cranberry Apple Walnut Cobbler is a recipe that uses this technique.
Method 3: With fresh fruit in the oven
Many soft fruits such as peaches and strawberries require little cooking. A raw fruit filling can be topped and then popped in the oven. By the time the topping is baked, the filling is usually hot and bubbling. Church Potluck Cobbler is a recipe that uses this technique.
Method 4: With canned fruit pie filings
We usually reserve these canned pie fillings for crisps and usually when we are in a hurry.
OTHER TECHNIQUES AND TIPS
Cobblers and crisps can be any size. A 9 x13 pan needs eight to ten cups of fresh fruit—the equivalent of six or eight apples. An 8 x 8 pan is half the size. Covering a 9 x 13-inch pan with a cake-like or biscuit-like topping requires a recipe with 2 1/2 - 3 cups flour. One-half cup of sugar in that same topping recipe will make a not-too-sweet topping.
The Apple Cranberry Walnut Cobbler uses fresh apples and dried cranberries and this stovetop method. We can then control the amount of juice and sweetness of the filling. We can leave the cranberries out; we can use fresh cranberries at holiday time. We can use raspberries or strawberries. We can add nuts to the filling. We can spice up the filling.
Finally, we like to add finally chopped nuts, walnuts or pecans, to cake-like and biscuit toppings. Slivered or sliced almonds are wonderful additions to streusel toppings for crisps.
(Courtesy of the Prepared Pantry)
(If YOU have a smart idea, won't you share it? Life is so much easier and we accomplish so much more when we pool our resources. And after all, we're all in this together. So email
patty@dvo.com or
alice@dvo.com with YOUR Smart Ideas!)
Contribute to the Cook'n Club!
DVO would love to publish your article, prose, photography and art as well as your cooking, kitchen and nutrition tips, tricks and secrets. Visit the Newsletter Submission / Win Win for All section in our Forum for more information and details.
