With Covid-19, this summer isn't going to be like most summers past. We most likely won't be crowding restaurant patios, dancing at concert festivals, or packing the decks of cruise ships. This will not be a reprise of 2019's #hotgirlsummer, but that's okay. For many of us, we will be lucky enough to be able to spend some of this summer in the safety of our backyards - distanced, and safe. While we'll be missing so much, we at SideChef want to reassure you that we still have one of summer's most important and treasured traditions available to us: baking cobbler!
Now, there are many variations of cobbler - most notably by region, by season, and/or by family. Almost anyone who has a cobbler opinion has a set of house rules. Overall, cobbler involves baked fruit and some kind of biscuit, pie-crust, or pastry topping. Some can even include batter toppings! For the sake of simplicity, and for those of you who might be new to cobbler-making, we’re going to break it down into three essentials needed to create any kind of fruit cobbler:
For the fruit filling, you can use any fruit, fresh or frozen - just make sure it's completely thawed, and/or pitted and/or chopped ahead of time. Depending on the size of your dish you could use anywhere from 2-6 cups worth of your preferred fruit. You don't need to toss the fruit in sugar and a bit of cornstarch, but both make the dish even better - the sugar will help bring out additional sweetness, and the cornstarch will help thicken the fruit filling. As for the biscuit dough - any simple cream or buttermilk biscuit recipe should work. Now, when it comes to assembly and baking, fruit-filling goes in first, followed by dollops of the biscuit dough on top, then pop it into a (well-preheated) oven. It's that simple.
Though you can make cobbler any time of year, it’s our opinion there is no better time than summer when so many fruits hit their stride. Hot Cobbler Summer here we come! See below for some of our favorite SideChef cobbler recipes to get you started.