Post by Glen Carman aka Delmonico on Sept 5, 2017 2:56:00 GMT -6
Cobbler and Similar Desserts
If you ask most people who cook with dutch ovens what they make most often for desert, they will say cobbler, most often peach, but also other fruits get tossed under a crust in a dutch oven.
Cobblers are perhaps the most common dessert cooked on dutch ovens, they are very popular with Boy Scout troops and others just getting started cooking with dutch ovens. They are simple to prepare and take just a short time to bake. I like them because I can feed a lot of folks out of an oven and they are well loved, peach is the most popular.
In proper terms most of us don’t really make a cobbler, a strict definition of a cobbler is a pie with just a crust on top and that crust should be a paste crust like a pie. Few make that type in camp, the crust is most often either a sweet biscuit crust, a poured batter similar to a cake or for many modern campers, a cake mix sprinkled on top with some pats of butter added to it.
Our sweet biscuit dough with fruit under it was also sometimes called a slump or grunt, although often cook books of the time with have recipes for all three that will vary just a little.
Cobblers and other similar deserts can also be made from fresh fruit, dried fruit or from canned/frozen fruit, of course frozen fruit is not correct for 19th century cooking, but it’s not hard to hide the package if you go that route. Most of my dutch oven cooking is done on trips where I cook for groups of from perhaps a dozen to sometimes close to a 100. Most of my cobblers are made with canned fruit because it’s inexpensive, it takes a lot less prep time and lets face it, canned fruit is more durable when packing than fresh fruit. Peach is the most popular with the crowds and it is usually the cheapest canned fruit also, so despite the fact I don’t like peaches, I make a lot of peach cobblers.
Most of my cobblers are made in 14 inch shallow ovens, depending on the size of the serving; these will make 15-25 servings of cobbler. Also the type of crust will affect the amount of servings in the cobbler, if you have a thin pie crust top it will not serve as many as a thicker biscuit or batter type crust.
Another reason the 14 inch shallow ovens work so well for cobblers the large #10 cans (More often called Institutional size today) are just right and save money. A 5 pound bag of fresh apples works about right also, of course any fruit will work fine or even a mix of more than one. A smaller cobbler can also be mead in a separate pan in a dutch oven using a trivet on the bottom like a pie. No matter what fruit you use, start by making sure the oven is lightly greased if baking right in the oven.
With the canned fruit I open the can and drain the liquid into the oven or a bowl, for the #10 can I add any spices desired and around a ¼ cup of flour. (Cornstarch can also be used, just use about half as much. I seldom carry cornstarch in the camp box.) With a whisk or fork mix it well and if using a separate bowl pour it in the dutch oven, then put the fruit on top and mix in. (Do the same thing with thawed frozen fruit if that is what is being used.)
Dried fruit needs a bit of water added and simmered for a short time to plump it, do not use more water than needed, as it simmers more can be added, the sugar can be added to the dry fruit as it simmers. After that treat it as you would the canned or frozen fruit.
With fresh fruit it will need to be peeled if one desires and the core, removed. (Or pits and what ever else are in the fruit you don’t want to eat, including insects if present.) The fruit also needs to be sliced up into what ever size pieces are desired. The fruit can be sliced into a bowl or directly into the oven if desired. (I don’t try to make more dishes to wash than are needed.)
I then add the amount of sugar desired, this will vary with the tartness of the fruit and the desired sweetness, and I find a cup or so is about right for my taste. I also add the spices desired, and then I stir it well. Next add the ¼ cup or flour and stir well, pouring it into the oven if using a bowl.
No matter if we are using fresh fruit or canned, it is now time to put on a crust. (If the pie crust is desired, go to that section.)
The crust I use for a 14 inch cobbler will be:
4 Cups of flour
6-12 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of salt
1/4-1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup of lard
12 oz can of condensed milk or 1 ½ cups of fresh milk
Reduce this by 1/3rd for a 12 inch oven and by half for a 10 inch.
Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the lard, stir in the milk, adding enough water to make a very sticky dough and knead slightly. Pat the dough out about ¾ inch with you hands and cover the fruit. (Small gaps are fine.)
Bake in a moderate oven (around 350F) 25-40 minutes or until crust is nice and browned, it is best to stay on the lighter side with the bottom coals when making this, with the sugars in the fruit it is easy to scorch on the bottom.
Another way to make a top crust for a cobbler when you are multi-tasking is to simply make up some extra dough when making plain white bread for the meal, enough for a loaf is about right for a 14 inch dutch oven. Roll the dough out and cover the fruit, let it rise till about double and bake as any other cobbler, except when the crust starts to brown slightly toss a little brown sugar and a few dots of butter to the top and finish baking.
A lot of folks like to use a pourable crust on a cobbler, pretty much any basic cake recipe will work. A cobbler with a poured crust is also sometimes known as a pandowdy a Clafouti or in England it can be called an Eve’s Pudding if it uses apples.
3 cups flour
1 ½ cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
½ stick butter (softened)
12 oz can of condensed milk or 1 ½ cups of fresh milk
1-2 eggs
Mix the dry ingredients together, beat the eggs, butter and milk together, add to the dry and mix well. Pour over the thickened fruit and 25-40 minutes a moderate oven (around 350F), till the crust is nice and brown.
We now get to a couple of cousins of the cobbler, one is well known in historical cooking books dating before the Civil War, the next one is not so easy to pin down. What I am referring to is the Brown Betty and the crisp. The crisp is well known today, the Brown Betty is seldom seen out of the company of historical cooks.
The Brown Betty varies like any recipe with who makes it; a Brown Betty uses bread crumbs, sugar and butter for the crust, but the crust is layered, most Brown Betty recipes call for apples, but any fruit desired can be used.
Brown Betty for a 12 inch deep dutch oven
4 cups dry bread crumbs
1 cup brown sugar
10 medium apples, cored and sliced
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup applesauce
Mix the bread crumbs in a bowl add any spices desired and mix in the melted butter.
In a small bowl, combine bread crumbs, brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and cloves, in another bowl mix any desired spices and the sugar with the sliced apples.
Place a small layer of the crumb mix on the bottom of the oven; place a layer of the apple mix, then a layer of crumbs finishing up with a layer of crumbs on top.
Bake in a moderate oven (around 350F) for around one hour or until the apples are bubbly. This dish is traditionally served with cream, lemon sauce or plain vanilla custard (see custard) on top.
What we call a crisp such as an Apple Crisp is very similar to a cobbler, the biggest difference is that a crisp uses flour and rolled oats for an unleavened top crust that is crumbly, in some ways it resembles a Brown Betty except it is not layered.
Who invented the crisp and when is not known, it is not included in Fanny Farmer’s First Edition of the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book published in 1896 which is considered the best work on cooking in the United States in the late 19th Century. It does appear in cook books shortly after WWI.
What is known is the rolled oats type oatmeal used to make the dish was developed in the late 1870’s in Ohio. This speeded up the cooking time from the cut type used before this; oatmeal was not popular in the United States at the time and most used was imported from Scotland. The rolled oats business was given a boast when the Quaker Mill Company a producer of rolled oats started a national advertising campaign in 1882 and it got a further boast in 1885 when it started boxing it’s product rather than selling it in bulk. The Quaker Oats Company formed in 1901 did more promotion to make it a popular product including the cookie recipe on the box. The pre-cooked quick oats was introduced in the 1920’s.
Now as to if a crisp should be cooked in a 19th Century cook camp, that is up to the cook, I’m not so hard core to not, it is an easy, quick and well liked dessert which we see could have been made late in the period.
Back to making one, any fruit can be used, apple is the most popular followed by cherry, but peach and rhubarb are also popular. As before prepare the fruit like you would for a cobbler. Either regular oats or quick oats can be used.
Crisp
3 cups flour
3 cups rolled oats
2-3 cups of brown sugar
3 sticks (1 ½ cup) butter
Cut the butter into the flour and mix in the rolled oats and sugar.
Cover the fruit mix with the mixture and pat level. Bake in a medium to hot oven for 25-30 minutes or until the topping starts to brown.
A buckle is most times a desert that has a cake like bottom crust like the sweet biscuit or poured crust on the bottom, then the fruit on top and them a crumble crust like the crisp or Brown Betty on top and can be made using these recipes as a guide.
Like many old names, these will vary from book to book, person to person or by regions, but it does make a good basic guide.
If you ask most people who cook with dutch ovens what they make most often for desert, they will say cobbler, most often peach, but also other fruits get tossed under a crust in a dutch oven.
Cobblers are perhaps the most common dessert cooked on dutch ovens, they are very popular with Boy Scout troops and others just getting started cooking with dutch ovens. They are simple to prepare and take just a short time to bake. I like them because I can feed a lot of folks out of an oven and they are well loved, peach is the most popular.
In proper terms most of us don’t really make a cobbler, a strict definition of a cobbler is a pie with just a crust on top and that crust should be a paste crust like a pie. Few make that type in camp, the crust is most often either a sweet biscuit crust, a poured batter similar to a cake or for many modern campers, a cake mix sprinkled on top with some pats of butter added to it.
Our sweet biscuit dough with fruit under it was also sometimes called a slump or grunt, although often cook books of the time with have recipes for all three that will vary just a little.
Cobblers and other similar deserts can also be made from fresh fruit, dried fruit or from canned/frozen fruit, of course frozen fruit is not correct for 19th century cooking, but it’s not hard to hide the package if you go that route. Most of my dutch oven cooking is done on trips where I cook for groups of from perhaps a dozen to sometimes close to a 100. Most of my cobblers are made with canned fruit because it’s inexpensive, it takes a lot less prep time and lets face it, canned fruit is more durable when packing than fresh fruit. Peach is the most popular with the crowds and it is usually the cheapest canned fruit also, so despite the fact I don’t like peaches, I make a lot of peach cobblers.
Most of my cobblers are made in 14 inch shallow ovens, depending on the size of the serving; these will make 15-25 servings of cobbler. Also the type of crust will affect the amount of servings in the cobbler, if you have a thin pie crust top it will not serve as many as a thicker biscuit or batter type crust.
Another reason the 14 inch shallow ovens work so well for cobblers the large #10 cans (More often called Institutional size today) are just right and save money. A 5 pound bag of fresh apples works about right also, of course any fruit will work fine or even a mix of more than one. A smaller cobbler can also be mead in a separate pan in a dutch oven using a trivet on the bottom like a pie. No matter what fruit you use, start by making sure the oven is lightly greased if baking right in the oven.
With the canned fruit I open the can and drain the liquid into the oven or a bowl, for the #10 can I add any spices desired and around a ¼ cup of flour. (Cornstarch can also be used, just use about half as much. I seldom carry cornstarch in the camp box.) With a whisk or fork mix it well and if using a separate bowl pour it in the dutch oven, then put the fruit on top and mix in. (Do the same thing with thawed frozen fruit if that is what is being used.)
Dried fruit needs a bit of water added and simmered for a short time to plump it, do not use more water than needed, as it simmers more can be added, the sugar can be added to the dry fruit as it simmers. After that treat it as you would the canned or frozen fruit.
With fresh fruit it will need to be peeled if one desires and the core, removed. (Or pits and what ever else are in the fruit you don’t want to eat, including insects if present.) The fruit also needs to be sliced up into what ever size pieces are desired. The fruit can be sliced into a bowl or directly into the oven if desired. (I don’t try to make more dishes to wash than are needed.)
I then add the amount of sugar desired, this will vary with the tartness of the fruit and the desired sweetness, and I find a cup or so is about right for my taste. I also add the spices desired, and then I stir it well. Next add the ¼ cup or flour and stir well, pouring it into the oven if using a bowl.
No matter if we are using fresh fruit or canned, it is now time to put on a crust. (If the pie crust is desired, go to that section.)
The crust I use for a 14 inch cobbler will be:
4 Cups of flour
6-12 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of salt
1/4-1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup of lard
12 oz can of condensed milk or 1 ½ cups of fresh milk
Reduce this by 1/3rd for a 12 inch oven and by half for a 10 inch.
Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the lard, stir in the milk, adding enough water to make a very sticky dough and knead slightly. Pat the dough out about ¾ inch with you hands and cover the fruit. (Small gaps are fine.)
Bake in a moderate oven (around 350F) 25-40 minutes or until crust is nice and browned, it is best to stay on the lighter side with the bottom coals when making this, with the sugars in the fruit it is easy to scorch on the bottom.
Another way to make a top crust for a cobbler when you are multi-tasking is to simply make up some extra dough when making plain white bread for the meal, enough for a loaf is about right for a 14 inch dutch oven. Roll the dough out and cover the fruit, let it rise till about double and bake as any other cobbler, except when the crust starts to brown slightly toss a little brown sugar and a few dots of butter to the top and finish baking.
A lot of folks like to use a pourable crust on a cobbler, pretty much any basic cake recipe will work. A cobbler with a poured crust is also sometimes known as a pandowdy a Clafouti or in England it can be called an Eve’s Pudding if it uses apples.
3 cups flour
1 ½ cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
½ stick butter (softened)
12 oz can of condensed milk or 1 ½ cups of fresh milk
1-2 eggs
Mix the dry ingredients together, beat the eggs, butter and milk together, add to the dry and mix well. Pour over the thickened fruit and 25-40 minutes a moderate oven (around 350F), till the crust is nice and brown.
We now get to a couple of cousins of the cobbler, one is well known in historical cooking books dating before the Civil War, the next one is not so easy to pin down. What I am referring to is the Brown Betty and the crisp. The crisp is well known today, the Brown Betty is seldom seen out of the company of historical cooks.
The Brown Betty varies like any recipe with who makes it; a Brown Betty uses bread crumbs, sugar and butter for the crust, but the crust is layered, most Brown Betty recipes call for apples, but any fruit desired can be used.
Brown Betty for a 12 inch deep dutch oven
4 cups dry bread crumbs
1 cup brown sugar
10 medium apples, cored and sliced
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup applesauce
Mix the bread crumbs in a bowl add any spices desired and mix in the melted butter.
In a small bowl, combine bread crumbs, brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and cloves, in another bowl mix any desired spices and the sugar with the sliced apples.
Place a small layer of the crumb mix on the bottom of the oven; place a layer of the apple mix, then a layer of crumbs finishing up with a layer of crumbs on top.
Bake in a moderate oven (around 350F) for around one hour or until the apples are bubbly. This dish is traditionally served with cream, lemon sauce or plain vanilla custard (see custard) on top.
What we call a crisp such as an Apple Crisp is very similar to a cobbler, the biggest difference is that a crisp uses flour and rolled oats for an unleavened top crust that is crumbly, in some ways it resembles a Brown Betty except it is not layered.
Who invented the crisp and when is not known, it is not included in Fanny Farmer’s First Edition of the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book published in 1896 which is considered the best work on cooking in the United States in the late 19th Century. It does appear in cook books shortly after WWI.
What is known is the rolled oats type oatmeal used to make the dish was developed in the late 1870’s in Ohio. This speeded up the cooking time from the cut type used before this; oatmeal was not popular in the United States at the time and most used was imported from Scotland. The rolled oats business was given a boast when the Quaker Mill Company a producer of rolled oats started a national advertising campaign in 1882 and it got a further boast in 1885 when it started boxing it’s product rather than selling it in bulk. The Quaker Oats Company formed in 1901 did more promotion to make it a popular product including the cookie recipe on the box. The pre-cooked quick oats was introduced in the 1920’s.
Now as to if a crisp should be cooked in a 19th Century cook camp, that is up to the cook, I’m not so hard core to not, it is an easy, quick and well liked dessert which we see could have been made late in the period.
Back to making one, any fruit can be used, apple is the most popular followed by cherry, but peach and rhubarb are also popular. As before prepare the fruit like you would for a cobbler. Either regular oats or quick oats can be used.
Crisp
3 cups flour
3 cups rolled oats
2-3 cups of brown sugar
3 sticks (1 ½ cup) butter
Cut the butter into the flour and mix in the rolled oats and sugar.
Cover the fruit mix with the mixture and pat level. Bake in a medium to hot oven for 25-30 minutes or until the topping starts to brown.
A buckle is most times a desert that has a cake like bottom crust like the sweet biscuit or poured crust on the bottom, then the fruit on top and them a crumble crust like the crisp or Brown Betty on top and can be made using these recipes as a guide.
Like many old names, these will vary from book to book, person to person or by regions, but it does make a good basic guide.
