There’s immense satisfaction in enjoying perfectly ripe summer fruit. However, baking that fruit with flour, butter, and sugar elevates the experience, especially when paired with vanilla ice cream. This leads to the question: what exactly is a cobbler? How does it differ from a crisp or a crumble?
The distinctions can be ambiguous, varying by region. As Kim Severson of The New York Times noted, even people within the same county may disagree on the proper definition of a cobbler. To clarify the differences, we’ve consulted our favorite baking cookbooks to provide a definitive answer.
Cobbler
The cobbler has the longest history in America among these desserts, with its origins traced back to the 1850s, according to the Oxford Companion to Food. By the mid-19th century, it evolved into a fruit-baked dish topped with some form of dough. In 1859, John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms defined a cobbler as “A sort of pie, baked in a pot lined with dough of great thickness, upon which the fruit is placed; according to the fruit, it is an apple or a peach cobbler.”
Initially, the cobbler was indeed similar to a pie. Abby Fisher, a former slave who became a renowned chef, included a peach cobbler recipe in her 1881 cookbook, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, featuring pastry dough both underneath and on top. In many parts of the South, pastry dough remains a traditional component of cobblers, sometimes resembling a pie, other times just as a topping. This highlights the rich culinary heritage and experience associated with Southern cobblers.
Over time, the cobbler began to be associated with a biscuit topping, resembling a large shortcake, or a cake batter topping, a style often found in barbecue restaurants across the South, as Severson points out. The expertise in crafting the perfect cobbler lies in choosing the right topping to complement the fruit.
