Cobbler is a traditional baked dessert that is enjoyed in households throughout the USA and Britain. It is typically made with a fruit filling and a golden brown biscuit topping (known as dumplings or scones in the UK). A childhood favourite for many people, it has a rustic appearance and is associated with comforting home-cooked food.
Most cobblers are made with sweet fruit fillings like cherry or peach, with the bottom of the biscuit shell soaking up all those delicious juices, while the top stays firm. They are usually served warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Cobblers are thought to have evolved from British suet puddings, which are sweet or savoury puddings made with flour and suet, the most famous example being the traditional Christmas pudding. When British colonists began settling in the USA, they made improvised versions of their favourite dish using whatever ingredients they had to hand, resulting in the cobbler and several regional variations, including Grunts, Slump, Pandowdy, Sonker and Brown Betty.
Like their suet ancestors, the original cobblers could also be savoury, and meaty stews were just as likely to be given a cobbler topping as their sweet counterparts. Sweet cobblers gradually grew in popularity, however, and by the late 19th century cobblers were known predominantly as a dessert item. There are still some savoury cobblers today, but the dessert version is far more common.
How to make cobbler topping
The ideal cobbler topping should be light and fluffy underneath, to soak up all those juices, but firm and golden on the top. You can use your own favourite biscuit or scone recipe, but if you don’t have one, we strongly recommend whipping up a batch of extra-luxurious cream biscuits.
To make cream biscuits, simply combine 2 cups of flour, 2 ½ teaspoons of sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and ¾ teaspoon of salt in a bowl, then mix in 1 ½ cups of heavy cream until you have a rough batter.
Once you have made your batter, place it on top of your filling in several scoops or large spoonfuls. Don’t worry about covering all of the filling like you would with a pie – one of the nicest things about cobblers is the way the filling bubbles up around the biscuit topping. If you have an ice cream scoop or cookie scoop, these will do the job very well.
Which fruit is best?
You can make a cobbler with any of your favourite fruits, but popular choices include berries like strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and blackberry, orchard fruits like apples and pears, and stone fruit like peaches, plums, cherries and apricots. Using firmer fruit like cherries or apples will prevent your topping from going mushy, as it will begin cooking before the fruits release their juices. This doesn’t mean you can’t use softer fruits, but try to team them up with a firmer fruit if you do.
Cobbler is sometimes described as a kind of fruit pie, but strictly speaking, the two are different. Pies are made from pastry, rather than biscuit batter, and they are fully encased, with a crust at the top and the bottom, while cobblers typically only have a topping. Cobblers are generally easier to make, and unlike pies they don’t require specialist baking tins.
The cobbler has plenty in common with the crisp – both are made from a fruity filling with a baked topping, and like the cobbler, the crisp does not usually have a bottom layer of crust. The difference is in the type of topping, with crisps using a mix of butter, flour and sugar, which is rubbed between the fingers for a breadcrumb-like consistency, and baked in the oven until golden brown and crunchy. The topping for a crisp cooks much more quickly than a cobbler, so soft, overripe fruits are the perfect choice for filling.
Peach Cobbler
FAQ
What is a British cobbler?
What else is cobbler called?
What is another name for a cobbler dessert?
Is cobbler the same as crumble?
What does a cobbler look like?
Cobbler is a dessert consisting of a fruit (or less commonly savory) filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a batter, biscuit, or dumpling ( in the United Kingdom) before being baked. Some cobbler recipes, especially in the American South, resemble a thick-crusted, deep-dish pie with both a top and bottom crust.
What is cobbler & why is it so popular?
Cobbler has been around in America the longest of the three desserts; the Oxford Companion to Food dates its inception back to the 1850s. By the mid-19th century, it had become the dish we know now: fruit baked in the oven with some form of dough.
What exactly is a cobbler?
In 1859, cobbler was defined in John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms as: “A sort of pie, baked in a pot lined with dough of great thickness, upon which the fruit is placed; according to the fruit, it is an apple or a peach cobbler.” Well, John, that sounds like…pie.
What is a cobbler & how do you eat it?
Cobbler is a traditional baked dessert that is enjoyed in households throughout the USA and Britain. It is typically made with a fruit filling and a golden brown biscuit topping (known as dumplings or scones in the UK). A childhood favourite for many people, it has a rustic appearance and is associated with comforting home-cooked food.