You can call it a cobbler or a baked fruit thingy...anything but a crumble.

Being from the Deep South, I, as most good southern cooks, have very narrow definitions of what certain foods are. The following foods fall in this category: Jam/Jelly, Casserole/Bake, Stew/Soup and the list goes on.  Seeing as how I married a good ol' New York Yankee boy, none of these foods are more contested than the Cobbler/Crumble.  A line has been drawn in our family that is reminiscent of the Dixie and after 16 years of marriage, there is no way I'm budging on this one. The following is a recipe that I have perfected for a fruit cobbler.  It is not in any way, shape or form, to be confused with a crumble - other than the fact that they are both baked, in an oven, in casserole dishes. 

The fruit cobbler is a dish of necessity.  Back when refrigeration was not the norm, either you ate it or canned it. The fruit that was going to waste that could not make it through the canning process because it would spoil first was thrown into a pan and baked either in a pie or in a less uppity, cobbler. There is no one way to make it, it is "cobbled" together by what is on hand, but below is an outline on where to start.  

A True Southern Girl's Fruit Cobbler (PRINTABLE RECIPE)

  

In a 400 degree oven preheat the baking dish with a stick of salted butter in the bottom (you can cut this back to 4 tablespoons, but not less than that).  

Fruit Mixture

• 6 cups of cut up fruit
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1 tablespoon or to taste grated ginger root OR
• 1 tablespoon or to taste cinnamon OR
• 1 tablespoon or to taste cardamom OR
• 1 tablespoon or to taste garam masala

Mix the sugar and the spice you've chosen to the fruit. If you can afford to wait, let it sit overnight to let it make a good syrup.

 

Crust Mixture

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of the spice you used on the fruit
• 1/2 cup of milk

In a bowl mix all the ingredients of the crust. It should look like pancake batter. You can use less sugar if you like, but not less than a half cup.

Once the oven is preheated and the pan is hot and the butter is melted, pour the batter in the bottom of the pan over the butter.

Then with a sloted spoon ladle the fruit over the top of the batter.

Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the top is browned and cooked through.

Serve hot topped with your choice of topping.

• Greek yogurt
• ice cream
• whipped cream