In Mrs. Blackwell's Heart-of-Texas Cookbook (Corona Publishing, 1980), the authors reminisce
about the wonderful cobblers created for desserts during the Depression
in many a Texas farmhouse. A pie required a delicate crust and served a
finite number of people, whereas a cobbler demanded little dexterity (just
a fast toss-together of ingredients) and could serve many.
Cobblers are a winning dessert or snack, achieving blue ribbons in the wholesomeness, ease-of-preparation, crowd-pleasing, and not-picky-about-the-ingredients categories. Both cobbler toppings and fillings are reliant only upon the season and what happens to be in the cupboard. It takes very little planning or culinary skill to put together a satisfactory cobbler.
If you ordered a cobbler in the 1800s, you would have received an alcoholic beverage made of wine or sherry blended with orange juice and sugar. The comforting fruit dessert use of the term cobbler seems to have originated in the American West, where the chuckwagon cook created a baked fruit dessert, with a crumbly topping, in a skillet atop an on-the-trail fire. Desserts resembling cobblers are served all over the country, with such interesting names as fruit paradise, cockaigne, pandowdy, slump, and crumble.
In reality, a culinary purist would tell you that crisps, crumbles and cobblers are not interchangeable terms. According to The Chef's Companion (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986), a cobbler is a deep-dish fruit pie with a thick top crust of biscuit dough; a crumble is a pudding made of fruit thickened with breadcrumbs, sweetened, and baked; and a crisp is a baked fruit dessert with a crumbled pastry topping. In this article, we will take poetic license and refer to a fruit and grain-topped dessert as any of the above terms.
A traditional recipe for a cobbler called for flour, salt, fat, and water for the crust, and fruit, sugar and butter for the filling. If you are looking for an exact replica of an old-fashioned (translation: high-fat, high-sugar, low-fiber) cobbler, you can replace some of the ingredients listed below with fat, sugar or bleached flour. We think you'll like our updated version, and we know your body will!
Fruit (fresh, dried, canned, or frozen) and grains (oats and whole grain flours) make up the bulk of a cobbler. Traditional cobblers relied heavily on fat (butter or lard) and sugar for flavor, color and texture. Fruit juice, fruit sauces, and fruit or nut butters are the 90s (and the nutritionists') answer to these empty-calorie ingredients. We have replaced fat with apple butter, applesauce, stewed dried fruit, fruit juice concentrate, and pured fruit. If fat is not a concern, nut butters, such as almond butter, can be used. Toppings are designed to be crunchy, chewy, spicy, and complementary to the filling. If you are looking for a " poofier" topping, just use your favorite biscuit recipe; prepare a biscuit topping and dab bits of the topping on top of the uncooked cobbler filling.
Cobbler toppings are a blend of grains, fruit and spices. Rolled oats make a good base, and wheat germ, nut kernels and dried fruit add crunch and texture. Experiment with additions such as shredded carrots or zucchini, other grains such as cooked bulgur or spelt, crumbled cookies (ginger cookies are great!), or cold cereal flakes.
It is true that cobblers make a wonderful dessert, but don't keep the best for the last all the time. Cobblers make a good breakfast (make some extra and reheat with a little soy milk for the optimal comfort food), mid-morning snack or as part of a fast lunch (envision a bowl of lentil-tomato soup and a scoop of triple-apple cobbler). Cobblers served with sliced fresh fruit and a sprinkling of nuts make a good dessert or mini-meal.
Cobbler (or crisp or crumble) fun is in the filling! anything (fruity, that is) goes! You can be a cobbler purist or go wild with flavor combos. The only rule is that the fruit you choose must be able to handle the heat, as the fruit will be cooked. Try an autumn combination of apples and pears, a summer blend of peaches and berries, or a winter creation of dried fruit. If the peach, apricot, pear, apple, plum, berry, or even grape crop has been a bit too bountiful, turn it into a cobbler! Have some canned fruit that stares at you every time you open the pantry? Need to move last summer's frozen fresh fruit out of the freezer? Wondering what to do with those dried nectarines? Cobblers are the answer!
Experiment with different types of dried fruit for this cobbler; a serving of this can perk up breakfast or snack-time.
Soak dried fruit in water for at least one hour. Drain and save liquid.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 9" x 13" pan. Combine fruit, carrots,
apples, and lemon in a large saucepan with 3/4 cup of saved liquid and
simmer for one hour (until fruit is soft); add more saved liquid, if necessary.
Cool to room temperature and spread in greased pan.
To make biscuit dough, squeeze pineapple until as dry as possible. Discard
juice. Mix pineapple and milk together in a large bowl. Add flour and baking
powder and mix well.
To assemble cobbler, arrange banana slices on top of fruit and then dot
fruit and bananas with biscuit dough (drop dough in tablespoon amounts)
until covered. Bake for 25 minutes or until biscuit topping is browned.
Serve with banana, apple or carrot chips. Tastes great served warm or cold.
Total calories per serving: 386
Fat: 2 grams
Take advantage of the seasons for this quick-and-delicious dessert.
This is a great make-ahead recipe. Double the recipe, serve one and freeze
the other. Apricots and berries can also be used.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, combine flour, apple butter
and sauce until crumbly. Put aside 1/2 cup of mixture and press remainder
into a greased 9" x 13" pan.
Mix cherries and peaches together and distribute over crust. Sprinkle remaining
flour mixture over fruit. Bake for 30 minutes until bubbly and golden brown.
Serve warm or cold with sliced fresh fruit.
Total calories per serving: 249
Fat: 1 gram
This recipe is a perfect use for all types of apples; serve as a dessert
or as a side dish with a hearty soup.
Ginger adds some "heat" and spark to this lovely autumn-inspired recipe.
Not much time to bake? No one will know with this recipe!
Excerpts from the Mar/Apr Issue:
The Vegetarian Journal published here is not the complete issue, but these are excerpts from the published magazine. Anyone wanting to see everything should subscribe to the magazine.
This article was converted to HTML by Jeanie Freeman
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