How To Make a Fruit Cobbler by Heart

Folks spend a great deal of time waxing poetically about the virtues of pie, but I’m going to make a strong declaration: Fruit cobbler beats the pants off of fruit pie. For starters, there’s no messing around with cold butter and pie dough in a hot kitchen in the middle of summer. Cobbler doesn’t have a bottom crust destined for sogginess, and if the juices of a cobbler run a little thin, it actually makes the dessert better. Cobbler delivers a crisp and tender top crust with jammy fruit filling underneath, it begs for a scoop of ice cream, and can go from craving to warm on the table in about an hour.

As much as I have strong opinions about cobbler versus pie, I also have very high standards for what makes a good cobbler topping. Regional variations abound. For instance, there’s a Southern-style recipe with a sugar cookie / pie dough-like topping, and others closer to a dumpling than a pastry, but the very best topping for cobbler is an easy sweet cream biscuit. A cream biscuit topping bakes up with crisp crust that breaks under the pressure of your fork, yielding to a tender, cake-like biscuit that greedily soaks up rich fruit juices.

Ready for the best cobbler of your life — one that you can memorize and bake anywhere, anytime? Here’s how to do it.

Cobblers, crisps, and crumbles are often grouped together into a family of recipes I like to call casual fruit desserts. They share a similar philosophy and can also have the exact same fruit filling, but their toppings are distinctly different. Cobbler topping should be a thick, dense pastry — usually a sweet cream biscuit — with a lightly sweetened fruit filling below.

Here are the four steps that every cobbler requires.

• Make a fruit filling — from any fruit.
  
• Make a sweet cream biscuit cobbler topping.
  
• Bake the fruit cobbler until bubbly.
  
• Serve the cobbler to joy and delight.

Cobbler can be made from any fruit, fresh or frozen, and any combination of fruit. As a general rule you’ll want about 6 cups of chopped fruit, roughly 1 1/2 pounds for most baking dishes. Make sure frozen fruit is thawed completely before baking. You can bake a cobbler with just fruit as the filling, but a little sugar and cornstarch tossed with the fruit before baking will work together to create a lush sauce from the fruit’s juices. This is the thing that turns a good cobbler into a knock-out dessert.

Cream biscuits are a quick bread made tender with full-fat cream, rather than butter and buttermilk. They only require flour, a little sugar, baking powder, and heavy cream.

Cobbler always takes a bit longer to bake than most people think. It’s important that the fruit filling comes to a full boil in the oven to ensure that the sauce is properly thickened. If you’re fearful of undercooked biscuits, go ahead and take a temperature of the biscuits in the middle of the dish — like all breads they should reach 200°F when fully baked.

Cobblers always bake up a little looser and more juicy than pie, so spoon that valuable liquid over the biscuit topping or a scoop of ice cream and keep in mind the juices will thicken as the cobbler cools. Serving warm cobbler with ice cream is a given, but it’s just as enjoyable when served cool the next day with a dollop of plain yogurt. It’s just the sort of breakfast that will make you a hero of any lazy summer morning.