Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Cobbler, Crisp, Crumble -- What's in a Name?

Cobbler, Crisp, Crumble -- What's in a Name?

 At a recent gathering of friends I made my favorite super easy Peach Crisp and of course as it always does we started talking about trying to define the difference between a fruit cobbler, fruit crisp and the many other names we had heard these delicious fruit desserts called. I was sure there was a specific way to tell what characteristics a dessert should have to be called a certain title and of course there is, now we all know, aren't you relieved!
Peach Crisp
Here is the main dessert category, which includes:
•Betty — a baked pudding made of layers of spiced and sugared fruit and buttered bread crumbs.
 •Clafoutis — a French cobbler, with fruit (usually cherries) on the bottom, custard, and a rough batter crust baked on top
 •Cobbler — a spoon pie (more like a fruit stew with dumplings), in which biscuit dough is dropped onto the fruit before baking. The consensus is that the dish got its name because the lumps of cooked dough resembled cobblestones.
 •Crisp — a deep-dish fruit dessert made with a crumb or streusel topping and baked.
 •Crumble — a British dessert in which raw fruit is topped with a crumbly pastry mixture and baked. One reference says a crumble is like a crisp, but not as rich.
 •Grunt — a spoon pie, with biscuit dough on top of stewed fruit, which is steamed, not baked
 •Pandowdy — a spoon pie, with fruit on the bottom and a rolled crust on top, which is broken up to allow the juices to come through
 •Slump — a spoon pie, including cooked or uncooked fruit topped with biscuit dough or piecrust, which can be baked or steamed, and can be made upside down

I was truely relieved to read this because it reassured me that my Peach Crisp was in fact REALLY a Peach Crisp. So the burning question for you is, was your dessert really a cobbler?