Cobbler is a baked fruit dessert and is so named because of the "cobbled" look of the topping. It can be made with any fruit or fruit filling. Cobbler consists of a fruit or savoury filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a batter, biscuit, or pie crust before being baked. Unlike a pie, cobbler never contains a bottom crust. (Source-Internet)
The first time I read about cobbler was at Aparna's space. Then on, I noticed in various blogs and wanted to try it. The sight of fresh peaches in the market made me think of cobbler and I'm glad I tried it. I adapted the recipe for the biscuit dough from JoyOfBaking. I took the points for the fruit filling and went with what I had in my pantry.
You need
- Peach, skinned, stoned and sliced - 2 cups
- Sugar - 1/2 cup
- Cardamom powder - 1 tspn
- Corn flour - 1 tblspn
For Biscuit dough
- Maida/All purpose Flour - 1 1/3 cup
- Salt - 1/4 tspn
- Baking powder - 1 1/2 tspn
- Sugar -1/4 cup
- Ghee/Butter - 4 tblspn
- Fresh cream - 1/2 cup (or milk)
Method
Removing the skin of the peach is optional. I felt the skin very thick and peeled it. Cut the peach into thick wedges. Remove the stone. Take a buttered baking dish. Arrange the wedges. Mix sugar, corn flour and cardamom. Spread on top of the arranged peach.
The peaches were not very sweet. Later after tasting I felt, it would have been better if the wedges were tossed in the sugar cornflour mix rather than just spreading on the top.
In another bowl take all the ingredients for the biscuit dough, except cream. Mix with a fork or spoon to resemble bread crumbs. Add the cream and gather the dough. Don't knead. Work lightly.
Roll the dough into 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into circles or squares and place it on top of the fruit. Don't cover it entirely. Leave some gap between the biscuits. On baking, the biscuits expand. Instead of rolling the dough, you can drop spoonfuls of the dough on top of the fruit.
I had some ghee to be used up. So decided to try it in place of butter. I used solidified ghee. I got very flaky biscuits. If you are using salted butter, then omit the 1/4 tspn of salt. In place of cardamom, you can cinnamon or nutmeg or any of your favorite fruit spice.
Bake at 200 C for 40 minutes or till the top browns and the fruit under is bubbly. In my oven, the top doesn't brown well. So I switch to grill mode in the last 3-5 minutes.
