We are smack dab in the middle of a pie renaissance.

Everyone seems to be playing around with pie crust, making mini pies, pies in jars, pies on sticks, handheld pies, pie milkshakes. You get the idea.

Last week, I even went to an amazing fund-raiser called Pies and Pigs for one Texas pie entrepreneur, Colleen Sommers, who is battling breast cancer and, like many in the food industry, doesn't have health insurance.

Amid all this pie craziness, I couldn't stop thinking about cobblers, pie's country cousin.

That's the beauty of a cobbler. You don't have to roll out the dough. You don't have to have any special lard or even a pie plate, and when measuring ingredients, if you're off by a tablespoon of water, butter or flour or if you have a less-than-perfect technique, the dish will still come together just fine.

What you do need is plenty of beautifully ripe fruit, which we have in abundance in Texas right now: Peaches, blackberries, plums, cherries, apricots, nectarines, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. Later this year, local apples, figs and pears will come in, giving you a whole new range of options.

The second component of a cobbler is the topping, which can vary widely. In some families, a cobbler is more like a spoon bread, made by pouring a batter into a baking dish and then adding fruit. Others prefer cobblers with biscuit-like dumplings that, when baked, look like a cobbled street.

Fruit, flour, sugar, butter. Seems simple enough, right?

For the most part, cobblers are good, basic desserts that new cooks should try before moving on to harder-to-make sweets, but things start to get complicated when you consider all the variations - usually regional, but sometimes generational - which include, but are not limited to, buckle, grunt, crisp and betty.

For grins and in an effort to suggest a cobbler recipe that doesn't require turning on your oven in the middle of summer, I decided to try making a stove top cobbler called a grunt, or a slump, depending on what part of the country you are from and who taught you how to cook.

I found a few grunt recipes online, pitted a pound of cherries with a nifty pitter I found at a garage sale a few years back, pulled out my trusty 8-inch cast iron skillet and got to work.

Stewing the cherries with a little water, sugar and a splash of bourbon was a breeze. I then whipped up a batch of dumplings from a Martha Stewart recipe for a berry grunt, dropped them by the spoonful into the cherries and covered the dish.

Fifteen minutes later, the dumplings had soaked up much of the cherry sauce, and the steam that had condensed into water on the lid made them into a sticky mess. It wasn't exactly what I had hoped for, but served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it tasted better than it looked.

Cobbler baking tips

Here are a few other tips to improve your own cobblers:

Don't fear cornstarch. Fruit, especially berries, has a high water content, and it doesn't hurt to make a slurry with a tablespoon or so of cornstarch and a little of that fruit juice (or water) to help thicken up your cobbler.

Go gluten-free. Most cobbler toppings call for flour, but you can make them wheat-free by using one of the many gluten-free flour mixes available at grocery stores these days instead of traditional flour. (It's usually a one-for-one swap, but double-check the instructions on the packaging.)

You also can substitute whole wheat flour for white for up to half of the total amount of flour, and a little cornmeal goes a long way to add just the right texture change to keep things interesting.

A little crisp goes a long way. I can't get enough oats, so I've been known to add a little crisp mixture on top of cobblers, even if they already have another dough on top of the fruit. The brown sugar, oats, flour and butter adds another layer of texture.

Cobbler for one. Sometimes, a whole cobbler is just too much, either because you'll be the only one eating it or you only have a handful of fruit on hand. It's easy to make a cobbler for one if you have a single-serve ramekin on hand, and if you don't, you can usually find them at local thrift stores.

Use a cup (or ½ pint) of fruit and cut your favorite cobbler dough/topping recipe in half. You might have a little extra dough, but it's a small loss compared with having to throw out half a pan of uneaten fruit.


Slow-Cooker Apple Crisp

From "The Crockin' Girls Slow Cookin' Companion" by Nicole Sparks and Jenna Marwitz


1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar, divided

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Pinch salt

1 stick (½ cup) butter, cut into ½-inch cubes

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 tablespoon cornstarch

½ teaspoon ground ginger

6 cups apple cored, chopped (and peeled if desired)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Instructions: In a medium bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, ½ cup granulated sugar, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together in a bowl.

Using a fork, a pastry cutter or your fingers, incorporate butter into the mixture until coarse crumbs form.

Stir in walnuts and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together remaining cup sugar, cornstarch, ginger and remaining cinnamon.

Place apples in the slow-cooker, then stir in cornstarch mixture and lemon juice. Sprinkle walnut crumb topping over top.

Cover and cook on high for 2 hours or low for 4 hours, until apples are tender.

After cooking time is complete, uncover to allow the topping to harden for about an hour.

Serve with ice cream.


Pear Cobbler with Dried Blueberries and Stone-Ground Corn Biscuits

From Epicurious.com

For biscuits:

1 cup all-purpose flour

²⁄3 cup stone-ground cornmeal

¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided

2 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt

6 tablespoons (¾ stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes, plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

²⁄3 cup chilled heavy whipping cream

For pear filling:

6 pounds firm but ripe pears, peeled, cored, cut into ½- to ¾-inch pieces (about 12 cups)

1 cup apple juice

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

2 tablespoons (¼ stick) chilled unsalted butter, diced

1½ cups dried wild blueberries

Vanilla ice cream

Instructions: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, ¼ cup sugar, baking powder and ½ teaspoon salt.

Using your fingers, rub in the chilled butter until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Stir in cream until just moistened.

Using your hands, form the dough into an 8-inch-long log, and cut log crosswise into eight 1-inch-thick rounds.

Spread 3 tablespoons sugar on plate.



Cover and chill.

For filling: Mix pears with apple juice, lemon juice, cornstarch, salt and nutmeg in a large bowl.

Let stand 10 minutes, tossing occasionally.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees and butter a 9-inch-by-13-inch glass baking dish.

Transfer filling to prepared dish, and dot with 2 tablespoons diced butter.

Cover dish with foil, and bake until pears are tender, about 50 minutes.

Remove dish from oven and mix in dried blueberries.

Place biscuits on top of filling.

Continue to bake uncovered until filling is bubbling thickly, biscuits are pale golden, about 35 minutes longer.

Cool 30 minutes and serve with ice cream.


Mark Bittman's Basic Cobbler Recipe

Makes 6 to 8 servings

From "How to Cook Everything," by Mark Bittman


4 to 6 cups blueberries or other fruit, washed and well dried, peeled and sliced as necessary

1 cup sugar, or to taste

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

Pinch salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits, plus some for the pan

1 egg

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions: Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Toss the fruit with half the sugar and spread it in a lightly greased 8-inch square or 9-inch round baking pan.

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and remaining ½ cup sugar in a food processor and pulse once or twice.


By hand, beat in the egg and vanilla.

Drop this mixture onto the fruit by the spoonful; do not spread it out.


Serve immediately.