First, what type of cobbler did your mother make? My grandmother here in Michigan always made a cobbler with a biscuit type top, but Elery's mother in Tennessee had a cake type of batter that required the berries to be dumped on top, then the berries sank and made the bottom "filling". I had a secretary who insisted that cobbler was made with pie crust, but only on the top, not on the bottom.

So, which type are you looking for?

Annie

Mother apparently made type 2 - the cake type of batter with the berries dumped on top, and they sank, and the top became a bit crunchy. Got a recipe like that?

I was going to weigh in, but I am in the biscuit on the top school.
We COULD get into a discussion of cobblers vs grunts vs slumps vs crisps....but I won't start that! LOL!

Of course I do, courtesy of Vola Barnes, my husband's mother!

Fruit Cobbler

BATTER:

1/2 cup melted butter

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

2 tsps baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 cup milk (room temp)

1 egg (room temp)

FILLING

4 cups raspberries/blackberries/blueberries/cherries/peaches/etc. (fresh or frozen)

1 cup sugar or to taste, depending on the sweetness of the berries

DIRECTIONS

Melt butter in 9 x 11 pan (I use glass). Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder & salt. Stir in milk and egg and pour evenly over melted butter. Combine berries and sugar and pour over batter in pan. DO NOT STIR.

Bake at 350F for 35-40 minutes or until batter comes to the top and is golden brown.

Serve warm, with ice cream.

I grew up with the biscuit topped cobbler, but this is the one Elery's mother always made and he loves it. His favorite is blackberry, but he just finished off a strawberry cobbler, single-handedly, in about a week. I do refrigerate it after the first day or so because the berries tend to go bad.

Good luck with recreating your memories!

Annie

Mine is for blackberries but it would work for raspberries. It has a short crust, like a short/cakey version of a pie crust, the fruit is rolled in it like a jelly roll, then it is cut into pinwheel slices and they are laid in a pan fruit side up, and covered with a sugar syrup and baked. Man is it good, but it is by NO MEANS healthy or gluten free, lol! If I was going gluten free and a tad healthier, I would just do a "crisp" with an oatmeal brown sugar butter topping (I'd throw in some nuts for fun, probably roasted almonds) and serve with vanilla frozen yogurt. I'd also toss in some cherries to thin out the seediness of the raspberries.

You could make a raspberry crisp using oats. You'd still need a bit of flour, but not as much as with cobbler.

We love Annie's Grandmother's Blueberry Crisp. It's not too sweet, but it is absolutely delicious! Imagine it would be equally yummy with raspberries.

Blueberry Crisp

3 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, unsweetened
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup quick oats
1/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Heat oven to 375°. Arrange berries in ungreased square baking dish (8 inch) and sprinkle with lemon juice. Combine remaining ingredients until crumbly. (I use a pastry blender). Crumble topping over berries and bake until topping is lightly browned and berries are hot, about 30 minutes. Makes 4-6 servings.

Annie, I grew up with a biscuit-topped cobbler too! I remember having a dinner party and making fresh apricot cobbler (my way) for my BF's father, who supposedly LOVED apricot cobbler. Imagine my disappointment when he saw mine and asked what it was. lol!

Anyway, since Ellery loves the recipe, I figured my BF (originally from Virginia) would love it to. I just made a gluten-free version for him and we had it warm from the oven for lunch. He loved it! I used my frozen blackberries and just converted to 1 c. GF flour mix plus 1/2 tsp xanthan... I also cheated and used cold egg and milk, but it went together easy and fast that way... in my 9x13 pan. :O) He had his with cheddar cheese. Thanks for posting the recipe! Couple pics for texture... a 9x11 pan would have been better, but I don't own one.

Oh, my, that looks delicious. I'm definitely going to have to do the gluten free version for Amanda, she'd be ecstatic, it's just one of those things I've never thought of. Peaches would be good too, yum. I don't have a 9x11 pan either, I use an old Pyrex casserole, kind of oval shaped.

Cindy, I smile whenever someone posts Grandma's Blueberry Crisp recipe. She would be astounded by today's internet, and that she and her old fashioned recipes can live on through the miracle of today's technology. She wouldn't understand it, but I think she'd love it, a recipe for everything at her fingertips, including hers!

Annie

Annie, I bought more berries yesterday so we're having her crisp tonight. We'll all be smiling. ;)

Thanks, Annie. FWIW, I make my AP GF flour mix based on the recipe at the KAF site, here. Funny... I also commented to BF that it would be good with peaches! I think I'll use my Corning French White oval casserole next time. :)

ETA: I see they switched the recipe to use 'stabilized' brown rice flour -- I've never tried that! I just use ordinary brf. ;^)

We've always made a recipe much like Annie1992's and never worry much about what type of fruit we have, whatever is in season or needs to come out of the freezer. Just adjust the sugar based on the fruit and your preferences. We even use pumpkin in the fall! Our recipe comes from my great-great-grandmother's recipe box, so probably dates from the mid-eighteen hundreds. Hope it provides just what you remember from your mother.

Lisa

Idstarr/Lisa, pumpkin sounds interesting! do you use sweetened puree or roasted chunks or what? This is making me think that it would be really good if I mixed some cream cheese w/ sugar and egg... maybe thin it a little w/ sour cream, and dolloped that onto the batter before adding the fruit. :O)

Tried a number of cobbler recipes. This is my favourite. I make it with raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.

Served with whipped cream or

vanilla cream sauce.

Blackberry/Raspberry Cobbler

Adapted from Recipe found on the Betty Crocker Website

1/2 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

1 cup flour

3/4 cup of milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups blackberries

extra sugar to sprinkle on top

Heat oven to 350°F.

Melt butter in small baking dish.

Mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder together. Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour in melted butter and stir to blend. Pour back into baking dish. Sprinkle blackberries on top and press down slightly. Sprinkle with sugar and bake 45 to 50 minutes or until done.

Serve warm or at room temperature with whipped cream or ice cream. Or drizzle with Vanilla cream sauce or a white chocolate cream sauce.

Thank-you, Linda! You've described what I've always thought of as "cobbler" but didn't make the association with the origins. Very cool.

We don't have any of the others you described. Fascinating. I assume the cottage pudding is baked? And "pudding" is more in the English sense of a dessert in a pot, as in trifle?

To the list of cooked fruit desserts, one can add brown betty (bread crumb or streusel topping), crumble (more like granola ingredients topping, with oats, nuts and brown sugar), crisp (like a marriage of brown betty and crumble with flour, butter and the oats, nuts, etc., forming a crisp top layer), and pandowdy (pastry top crust, like fruit pot pie, but broken up so it sucks up the juice and sheds butter into the fruit). I don't know if these descriptions are universal, but that's the best I've been able to figure out the difference. And one person's crumble is another person's crisp. Pandowdy is the "fancy" one, though it's the least pretty. :)

I've never heard of a slump. lol! When I think of cobbler, I think of a traditional peach cobbler (drop biscuit top) served with HARD SAUCE! It's the hard sauce that I was after... I love a good hard sauce. :)

My understanding is that all of those mentioned are a variety of "Cobbler". Crisps and crumbles are apparently not included in the "Cobbler" varieties.

LINK

Personally I don't care what you call these desserts. They are all good.

Agreed. They're all good. That Wikipedia article, however, sounds more like book research than actual eating, and seems a bit off. It separates off crisp and crumble merely because of oats, but still claims pandowdy as a cobbler, and says it's cooked on the stovetop with dumpling shaped dough on top, whereas it's baked in the oven, and has a pastry top which is slashed during baking (though some people cut it into squares at the start instead).

The recipe for the pumpkin part of the recipe is:

2 Eggs

1 5 oz can evaporated milk

1 30 oz can pumpkin pie mix (I believe my mother changed this. I remember my grandmother using her own pumpkin she canned and adding the normal pumpkin pie spices.)

Break eggs into bowl and whisk until foamy. Add evaporated milk and pumpkin and stir to mix well. Gently pour or spoon over crust batter and DO NOT stir. Continue the recipe as Anne_92.

If anyone would like the entire recipe let me know and I'll post.

Lisa

Idstarr, I'd love the recipe. I always have a bunch of pumpkin on hand in the fall, after Halloween has claimed the majority of the pumpkin patch and I'm left with the ones that aren't perfectly round or pretty to bake with.

Annie

Annie1992,

Here it is:

Great-Grandma's Pumpkin Cobbler

1 stick butter

1 cup Self-rising flour (or make it self rising, if you don't keep it in the house)

1 cup Sugar

1 cup Milk

1 tsp Vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 5 oz can evaporated milk

1 30 oz can pumpkin pie mix (I use i Libby's in a pinch, usually make my own)

Method:

Cut butter into 4 - 6 pieces and place in 9 x 11 glass baking dish

Pre-heat oven to 350° and place baking dish in while pre-heating long enough to melt the butter.

In medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, milk and vanilla extract together. When butter is melted, tip around in pan to make sure entire bottom is buttered. Pour batter over butter in baking dish. Do not stir or re-arrange.

Now break eggs into another bowl, and whisk until foamy. Add evaporated milk and pumpkin pie filling. Stir to mix well.

Spoon or pour pumpkin mixture over crust batter, trying to somewhat evenly distribute. Do not stir.

Bake 50-60 minutes, until crust is dark, golden brown. Remove to cooling rack and let cool at least 20 minutes before serving, with/or without whipped cream.

If there is any left, it will keep several days in the refrigerator. It is great cold or it can be warmed in the microwave.

To make a fruit cobbler using this recipe, make the batter portion according to the directions and then mix your fruit with whatever amount of sugar you think it will take. (Some fruits (blackberries for sure) I pre-cook in a sauce pan to ensure that they are soft and sweet when the cobbler is done). Just place the fruit over the batter in place of the pumpkin mixture and bake according to the same directions.

Enjoy --

Lisa

Thanks, everyone,,, I've now got some ideas going...

Thank you, Lisa, that's an interesting recipe, I'm definitely going to have to try that too!

Annie