Old-fashioned Cobbler Baking
My grandmother made cobbler every summer -- it was part and parcel of that time of year, along with watermelon and sprinklers and the sweet smell of newly cut grass. Cobbler was mainly summer food out of tradition. In her girlhood, they cooked according to the crop. Frozen fruit hadn't the certainty of quality and canned tended to get squishy, so she stuck by cobbler with fresh fruit.
The truth is, there are few rules when it comes to cobbler. For some, cobbler is a dish best
served cold -- others prefer it warm, with vanilla ice cream. For some, cobbler has a bottom
crust AND a top crust (albeit often latticed or made out of sweet and crumbly stuff). For
others, two crusts equal a pie. My grandmother's view was "when you put it in a cobbler pan, it's a cobbler -- when you put it in a pie pan, it's a pie." I think there's a lot of wisdom in that.
If you do use frozen fruit, make certain the fruit is mainly thawed. If your baking pan is too
deep, the fruit may stay cold in the center. If you do use frozen, use a more shallow pan and you may consider hiking the temperature up for a little bit, then bringing it back down. Canned fruit filling can be excellent now -- if you're using your own canned fruit, more's the better.
The best option, of course, is to use fresh fruit. Berries of any kind, apples, peaches ... I'm
sure someone somewhere has made an orange or banana cobbler, too.
Most people use a traditional pie crust recipe for the bottom, if they do use a bottom crust.
There are all manner of store bought crusts that can do quite well by a good cobbler. The flat
prepared crusts can even be formed into ribbons to make a lattice work across the cobbler.
There's always the brown sugar, cinnamon and what-have-you top crust, that I think is more common in the midwest. Some people melt butter with sugar and cinnamon, then brush this over a traditional pie crust topping. My grandmother, being from Arkansas, could make it both ways. She usually cooked fruit on the bottom with just a top crust.
Most people swear by vanilla ice cream as an accompaniment. My grandmother did. Others use whipped cream. I suppose, somewhere, there's a cheese-eating cobbler cooker, too. It really isn't important how you make the cobbler -- the only important thing is that you make a cobbler. Summer is here. What better excuse do you need?
The truth is, there are few rules when it comes to cobbler. For some, cobbler is a dish best
served cold -- others prefer it warm, with vanilla ice cream. For some, cobbler has a bottom
crust AND a top crust (albeit often latticed or made out of sweet and crumbly stuff). For
others, two crusts equal a pie. My grandmother's view was "when you put it in a cobbler pan, it's a cobbler -- when you put it in a pie pan, it's a pie." I think there's a lot of wisdom in that.
If you do use frozen fruit, make certain the fruit is mainly thawed. If your baking pan is too
deep, the fruit may stay cold in the center. If you do use frozen, use a more shallow pan and you may consider hiking the temperature up for a little bit, then bringing it back down. Canned fruit filling can be excellent now -- if you're using your own canned fruit, more's the better.
The best option, of course, is to use fresh fruit. Berries of any kind, apples, peaches ... I'm
sure someone somewhere has made an orange or banana cobbler, too.
Most people use a traditional pie crust recipe for the bottom, if they do use a bottom crust.
There are all manner of store bought crusts that can do quite well by a good cobbler. The flat
prepared crusts can even be formed into ribbons to make a lattice work across the cobbler.
There's always the brown sugar, cinnamon and what-have-you top crust, that I think is more common in the midwest. Some people melt butter with sugar and cinnamon, then brush this over a traditional pie crust topping. My grandmother, being from Arkansas, could make it both ways. She usually cooked fruit on the bottom with just a top crust.
Most people swear by vanilla ice cream as an accompaniment. My grandmother did. Others use whipped cream. I suppose, somewhere, there's a cheese-eating cobbler cooker, too. It really isn't important how you make the cobbler -- the only important thing is that you make a cobbler. Summer is here. What better excuse do you need?
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