Do not mistake the cobbler for a pie, crisp, tart, or torte. No friends, it is in a class of it’s own. It does not rely on the brown sugar goodness of a crisp, or require special pans of crimped shapes for a tart, or pie crust to hold the fruit in. Instead, the fruit of your choice is hidden beneath a mountain of sweet, light and fluffy biscuit which is enriched by the sweet flavors of the fruit. Unlike breakfast biscuit, the shelled top, is naturally formed in the baking process after raw clumps of the dough had been dropped on the fruit. When the biscuit is baking and rising, the clumps form what looks like a cobblestone street – simply beautiful. While “cobbler” itself was not used until mid-19th century, many other variations existed to describe similar, if not the same dish including: bird’s nest pie, pot-pie, bird’s-nest pudding, crow’s nest pudding, pandowdy, slumps, bumbles and grunts.
Upon settlng in the Americas, people did not have the brick ovens that they were accustomed to from across the pond, to cook and bake their favorite foods Wanting to bake a pie, but without the proper equipment can be demanding and tricky. Instead of attempting to fit a square peg in a round hole, the newcomers improvised by utilizing pots and baking over an open fire! But it was not pie that was made, rather it was cobbler.
To make a cobbler, is to be resourceful and use fresh ingredients that are on hand. Because the fruits that are usually featured in cobblers tend to be on the sweeter side, they require little sugar but to give this sweet treat a kick, one could add nutmeg and cinnamon.
