Maybe you know them as crumbles, slumps, dump cakes, or sonkers? How about a serving of crow’s nest pudding, pandowdy, or Brown Betty?
They’re all relatives in the cobbler family.
Basically, a cobbler is a clumsy-looking, no-fuss dessert made from cooked fruits and berries, topped with a biscuit-like pastry or layered with bread crumbs and cubes. All cobbler family members have four common elements – fruit, butter, sugar, and flour. It’s baked, steamed, or prepared stovetop depending on the kitchen. Some are served warm with a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.
It’s one big, happy family.
The family name cobbler has its own story. Jessica Nunemaker, author, known for the tagline, no great story ever started with a salad, mused that the name “could be due to the irregular forms the doughy topping takes on, reminiscent of a cobblestone path . . . a little of this, and a little of that.”
Cobbler family names are often regional: crisps and crumbles are British; Brown Betty was a popular colonial American dessert; and sonkers hail from Appalachia. New England bakes grunts and slumps and Israel boasts Passover cobblers.
Cobbler history is as colorful as its names. It has nothing to do with the guy who fixes (cobbles) your shoes – although he might love it too.
The British claim they invented it while the Americans say it was a staple in colonial life.
They’re both right . . . and both wrong. According to History and Legends of Cobblers, they are an evolution of the pie or pye, “from the Roman idea (2nd century B.C.) of sealing meat inside a flour and oil paste as it cooked.”
The History of Cobblers dates it back to 9500 B.C or the New Stone Age. They maintain that cobblers all have common elements: fruit, sugar (or molasses and honey), and flour.
Culinary DNA.
There are also less popular savory cobblers, made from vegetables and meat. Those are cousins once removed (see steak and kidney pudding below).
Food historians believe that British crumbles or crisps evolved from suet pudding in the early 1700s. Suet (the hard fat of beef or mutton) was used instead of butter or oil. It was combined with wheat flour, bread crumbs, preserved fruits like raisins, and topped with oats and nuts for crunch.
The Crisps and Crumbles evolved into popular desserts like Christmas pudding, Jam Roly-poly, and spotted dick.
Cobblers love their names.
The story is different on the other side of the pond. Chris Sands described it in Eat, “[American] colonists were forced to modify traditional European recipes due to a lack of traditional ingredients. Those early English and Dutch settlers used local fruits and berries covered with biscuit dough.”
Cobblers were a staple for early settlers. They were served for breakfast and dinner. It wasn’t until the late 1800s and the skills of the chuckwagon chefs in the west, that it became a dessert. The cowboys loved it.
Erwin E. Smith Wikimedia Commons
Today you can get peach cobbler in the south; sweet potato cobbler in African American communities, and wild blackberry cobbler in North Carolina. Any fruit works, from pear and blueberries to apples and plums. There’s no shortage of relatives.
With all those hands in the pot you can’t go wrong.
Enjoy!
Ha! It’s so true, makers of cobbler sure do love all the different names… It’s quite fun. I’ve never met a cobbler I didn’t like, even the savory ones. You are spot on to call it a no fuss dessert; I used to make one in a Dutch oven with a can of peaches, a box of Bisquick and some cinnamon. Delicious! Your articles make for delicious reading- always great fun and very informative. Thanks!