Cobblers work best with fruit that produces lots of juice, as in this quintessential British fruit combination.
Serves 4–6
400–500g Bramley apples, peeled and cored
About 300g blackberries
75g granulated sugar
Pinch of ground cloves
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon cornflour
FOR THE TOPPING
150g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
50g granulated sugar, plus extra for topping (optional)
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
60g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
80ml buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Cut the apples into thin slices and put into a bowl with the blackberries, sugar, cloves, lemon juice and cornflour. Mix well and tip into the baking dish in which you intend to cook the cobbler. Cover with foil, put the dish on an oven tray and bake for 25 minutes.
Towards the end of the cooking time, make the topping. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together. Just before the fruit is cooked, stir in the melted butter and buttermilk to make a very soft dough. Dust a work surface with flour and turn the mixture onto it. Cut into eight pieces and quickly shape these into rough discs.
Remove the fruit mixture from the oven, discard the foil and place the pieces of dough on top. Scatter another 1–2 tablespoons of sugar over the top if liked. Return to the oven on the tray for 25 minutes. Serve warm with sour cream or ice cream.
A classic dish of southern USA cookery. You can use drained, tinned peaches if fresh aren’t available.
Serves 6–8
8 large fresh peaches (or 800g tinned peaches, drained)
60g granulated sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
A few drops vanilla essence
2 teaspoons cornflour
FOR THE TOPPING
175g plain flour
150g golden caster or soft pale brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
100g butter, cut into small cubes
75ml boiling water
1–2 tablespoons demerara sugar
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Place the peaches into a pan of boiling water for 15 seconds, then drain and peel off the skins. Cut the fruit in half, discard the stones, and then cut each half into four slices. Mix them with the granulated sugar, lemon juice, vanilla essence and cornflour. Tip into a baking dish, cover with foil, place on an oven tray and bake for 10 minutes.
To make the topping, mix the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter and rub in, or pulse in a food processor, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Set aside.
Remove the peaches from the oven. Add the boiling water to the topping mix and stir just enough to make a dough. Distribute this in spoonfuls over the hot fruit (no need to spread it or attempt to neaten the top). Scatter a tablespoon or two of demerara sugar over and return to the oven on the oven tray for 30 minutes, until the top is golden and crisp and the filling bubbling around the edges.
Leave to cool for a few minutes before serving with vanilla ice cream.
The best known cobbler topping is based on American soft biscuits, which to British tastes are similar to plain scones, well risen, with just a hint of sweetness. Variety comes from the fats and liquids used for mixing. Buttermilk is a traditional choice for a light, fluffy result. Sour cream is an especially nice topping for berries, giving a subtle buttery tang. Milk and egg can be used if nothing else is available. A scattering of demerara sugar over the top before it goes into the oven adds crunch.
Peach cobbler is one of the best-known recipes, associated with the south-eastern USA where peaches grow well. Blueberries, which grow wild in places along the north-eastern seaboard of North America, are another traditional cobbler filling. Mixtures of fruit work well, and don’t be snobby about using canned or frozen fruit: nineteenth-century immigrants to North America would have relied on preserved fruit in harsh winters.
The filling ingredients are tossed with a little cornflour or flour: these thicken the fruit juice during cooking and produce a texture that harmonises better with the topping. Sugar is a matter of taste, but peaches and berries are sweet, so be cautious. Maple syrup is a favourite sweetener for rustic blueberry cobblers.
Flavourings such as spices are not routinely added to cobbler fillings, but try lemon or orange zest, or a hint of clove, cinnamon or vanilla if you like them. Or try a flavoured spirit or liqueur: bourbon added to peaches or sloe gin to plums or damsons.
A generous filling is good in a cobbler, so use a deep dish. Scone or soft biscuit dough should be rolled or pressed out to about 2–2.5cm thick. Softer doughs are dropped over the fruit or savoury base from a spoon; they find their own level during baking. In common with crumbles, cobblers – especially fruit-based ones – are prone to boiling over and an oven tray underneath is essential.
Cobbler toppings must be fully cooked. If in doubt, check the underneath of a biscuit or dumpling at the end of the baking time. If the base seems to be batter-like and not fully distinct from the filling, return it to the oven for 5–10 minutes.
Pears combine beautifully with lemon and almonds in this recipe.
Serves 4
About 1kg cooking pears
60g caster sugar, preferably vanilla sugar
Juice of 1 lemon (preferably unwaxed) and the zest cut into thin strips
2 teaspoons cornflour
FOR THE TOPPING
150g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
50g ground almonds
60g butter
60g honey
1–2 drops almond essence
About 100ml milk
1–2 tablespoons demerara sugar
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Peel and core the pears, then cut into small chunks and put into a pan with the sugar, lemon juice and zest and about 150ml water. Cook gently until the pears are soft enough to be roughly mashed with a fork. Slake the cornflour with a little water, stir into the mix and bring to the boil until it clears and thickens. Pour into a baking dish which leaves at least a couple of centimetres depth to spare.
To make the topping, mix the flour, baking powder and ground almonds. Put the butter and honey in a small saucepan over a low heat. Stir until the butter has just melted and the honey is liquid. Add a drop or two of almond essence. Stir this into the flour mixture, immediately followed by the milk, and stir just enough to form a thick batter. Drop this in generous spoonfuls over the pear mixture.
Put the dish on an oven tray and bake for 20–25 minutes or until the top is golden and the topping is fully cooked. If it is browning too fast, turn the heat down and cook for a little longer. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or crème fraîche.
A recipe for those with a sweet tooth, this is a cross between a cobbler and a pie and is very easy to make. The topping mixture creeps over the fruit as it bakes, hence the name. Plums, peaches, damsons, strawberries and blackberries are all good in this recipe.
Serves 6
100g butter
150g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
200g granulated sugar
120ml milk
About 400g plums, stoned
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Use a large, relatively deep dish. Put the butter in the dish and put it into the oven to melt, about 5 minutes. Remove.
Mix the flour, baking powder and sugar together, then pour in the milk. Stir just enough to make a thick batter. It is important not to over-work the mixture. Spoon the batter evenly over the melted butter. Distribute the plums over the top. Put the dish on an oven tray, return to the oven and bake for 30–40 minutes. The batter will rise to the surface, forming a crust. Make sure it’s fully cooked underneath. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
Not quite cobbler, not quite cake, this is a north American recipe, ideal for gluts of summer berries from garden or allotment. Blueberries are the usual fruit, but blackcurrants work well, their tart juiciness contrasting with the cake.
Serves 6
FOR THE TOPPING
60g soft brown sugar
60g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon or mixed spice
60g butter, cut into cubes
FOR THE TOPPING
60g butter, softened
60g caster sugar, plus extra for dredging (optional)
1 egg
140g self-raising flour (or 140g plain flour and 1½ teaspoons baking powder)
½ teaspoon salt
About 80ml milk
About 250g blackcurrants
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Butter a baking dish about 22cm square.
To make the topping, mix the brown sugar, plain flour, cinnamon or spice, and rub in the butter. Chill.
For the cake, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Mix in half of the flour and the salt, then half of the milk, then the remaining flour and milk. The batter should be quite soft. Spread it in a baking dish and scatter the blackcurrants over it; they should go right to the edge of the dish. Crumble the topping mixture between your fingers and distribute this over the fruit, again right to the edge. Bake for 35–40 minutes.
Leave to cool a little. Sprinkle with extra sugar if desired. Serve with ice cream, cream or custard.
A traditional pudding from Nova Scotia and New England, originally cooked on the stove top, steaming the dough. Lemon zest is a good addition to the topping.
Serves 6
400–500g blueberries, bilberries, blackberries or a mixture of summer berries
100g granulated sugar
Juice of ½ a lemon
FOR THE TOPPING
250g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
20g granulated sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon (optional)
120g butter, cut into cubes
1 egg
About 150ml milk
Preheat the oven to 220°C.
Put the berries, sugar and lemon juice in a baking dish (about 5–7cm deep) and stir. Cover with foil, place on an oven tray and bake for 10–15 minutes, until the fruit is soft.
To make the topping, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and lemon zest, if using. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Break the egg into a measuring jug and make up to 200ml with milk. Whisk together. Stir into the flour mixture to make a sticky dough.
Use two spoons to drop 12 rough ovals of dough on top of the berries. Cover and return, on the tray, to the oven for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 10–15 minutes or until the topping is fully cooked underneath. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 10 minutes. Serve with ice cream, thick cream or custard.
Grunts, slumps, buckles and sonkers are variations on cobblers, made down the east coast of North America. Starting in the north, grunts or slumps are associated with Nova Scotia and New England. They consist of cooked fruit – blueberries are a favourite – topped with spoonfuls of dough, often called dumplings. These supposedly make little grunting noises as they steam on top or slump in an amorphous mass when the pudding is served, giving the names to the puddings. Fans of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women may remember that the family house was called Apple Slump, perhaps a wry reference to a failed orchard business, or perhaps an affectionate nod to the local pudding.
Buckles seem to be called such because the surface sags and undulates. The name is used for something that is a cross between a cake and a pudding, a plain cake mixture beneath a generous scattering of fruit (blueberries are the usual choice); a crumble topping may be added. Perhaps they emerged as a way to make plain cakes more interesting or maybe they are related to the fruit and sponge puddings of British tradition, such as Eve’s pudding, which consists of apples under a sponge layer.
Sonkers, the most mysterious of this band, are unique to North Carolina. Beyond the fact that they are baked fruit-based puddings involving some kind of pastry, cooks do not agree about recipes. They can be double-crust, or top crust only, latticed or plain, or have a layer of pastry in the middle. They may be filled with berries, stone fruit, rhubarb or (a North Carolina favourite) sweet potato. Are they called sonkers because the top tends to sink under the juice? Or are they really fruit pies, transformed by local traditions?
A delicious autumn or winter pudding from New England.
Serves 6
About 1.5kg apples – a firm eating variety such as Granny Smith’s
60g butter
30g muscovado sugar
1 generous tablespoon golden syrup
Finely grated zest and juice of ½ a lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla essence or paste
1 generous teaspoon mixed spice
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Flour for dusting
250g puff pastry (bought or home-made)
Milk, cream or beaten egg to glaze
2 tablespoons demerara sugar
Preheat the oven to 220°C.
Peel and core the apples and cut into slices about 5mm thick. Put the butter in a skillet (or an ordinary frying pan) and melt, then heat it until the foam has subsided and it gives off a nutty smell. Mix in the syrup, lemon juice and zest, vanilla, spice, salt and cider vinegar. Pour over the apples and toss them in the mixture. Return to the skillet, if it is ovenproof, or tip into a baking dish.
Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the pastry. Use it to cover the apples, tucking it in around the edges. Brush with milk, cream or egg and scatter the demerara sugar over the top. Place on an oven tray and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cut through the pastry to make squares roughly 4 x 4cm. Press the edges of the pastry squares down into the juices. Leave to rest for about 10 minutes. Turn the heat down to 180°C and return to the oven. Cook for another 20–30 minutes, by which time the apples should be soft and the filling bubbling.
Remove from the oven (remember that a skillet handle will be very hot). Serve with thick cream or ice cream.
Pandowdy is firmly associated with New England. Made from apples, spiced and sweetened, traditionally with maple syrup, it is cooked in a skillet (a cast-iron frying pan with an integral cast-iron handle), topped with biscuit dough or pastry, and finished in the oven. Halfway through cooking the crust is cut into pieces and the edges gently pushed into the juice, helping to thicken it. The process is known as dowdying, perhaps because the damaged crust partially soaked in juice looks dowdy. Curiously, the English writer May Byron, in her book Pot-Luck (1914), recorded a version of apple dowdy from Essex: a baking dish lined with thin slices of bread and butter, filled with apples, syrup and some water, spiced with nutmeg, covered with more bread and butter, and baked for about 2 hours.
Sour cream gives a subtle but distinctive buttery richness to this cobbler topping, based on southern-USA-style soft biscuits. It can be made with strawberries alone, if preferred.
Serves 4–6
600g berries – use about 300g strawberries and add raspberries, blueberries or bilberries, blackcurrants and redcurrants according to availability and taste
50g granulated sugar
A little grated lemon or lime zest and juice
1 tablespoon cornflour
FOR THE BISCUIT TOPPING
175g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
50g granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons baking powder
60g butter, chilled
100ml sour cream
A little milk
Demerara sugar
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Pick over and wash the berries. Hull the strawberries and cut into halves or quarters if they are large. Put all the berries, the sugar, zest and juice and the cornflour into a bowl and toss together, then pour into the dish in which you intend to bake the cobbler. Cover with foil and bake for about 15 minutes.
While the berries warm through, make the biscuit topping. Mix the flour, sugar and baking powder. Coarsely grate the butter directly into the mixture (dip it in the flour from time to time if it tends to clog the grater). Stir to distribute it evenly. Stir in the sour cream, mixing well with a fork. If the dough seems on the dry side, add milk a teaspoon at a time until everything comes together. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead gently for six to eight turns to even out the dough. Then roll or pat out to about 2cm thick and cut out eight 5cm rounds, gathering and re-rolling the trimmings if necessary.
Remove the berries from the oven, discard the foil and arrange the biscuits on top. Brush them with a little milk and scatter a little demerara sugar over the top. Put the dish on an oven tray and bake for 25 minutes or until the topping is fully cooked. Serve warm with ice cream or sour cream.
