Crisp, cobbler, crumble, or buckle?

I love the fall. I love fall desserts. I have a recipe for a baked apple dessert, I call it an apple crisp. Every time I make it my husband calls it apple cobbler. Is he right, or am I right? Or are we both wrong… could it be a crumble? And what in the heck is a buckle? I had never even heard of a buckle before researching for this blog, so I am including it! Do you know the differences? I sure didn’t, so let’s get started learning about yummy desserts.

Let’s start with the buckle, since it was my first time even hearing about it. So, from what I have gathered it seems that a buckle dessert is a cakey dessert, similar to a coffee cake, made with fruit and a streusel topping. The reason it is called a buckle is due to the way the cake bakes up; while the batter rises, the heavy streusel topping causes the surface of the cake to buckle! Well, that’s awfully straight forward, isn’t it? Turns out, I have eaten a buckle. Yup, I didn’t even realize, because I called it a blueberry coffeecake. If you want to make a delicious fall fruit buckle, try adding fresh apples and caramel to your buckle!

Next up, let’s talk cobbler. Is my apple dessert a cobbler? This dessert can trace its origins back to the middle of the 1800s. Pies were already a popular dessert, but with the American westward expansion, many pie recipes needed to be modified to be easily baked in Dutch oven pots. Instead of traditional pie crusts, often rough biscuits were baked on top of the fruit, which formed a thick syrup. Many people assume that this dessert is called cobbler because the topping (which can be biscuit dough, batter, or dumplings) resembles the cobblestones people find on an old road. This does seem pretty likely. However, there is also a type of traditional English bread called cob bread. This bread is small and round, it may have been similar to the look of the biscuit on top of the baked cobbler? My husband grew up eating cobbler, and his favorite was a combo of blueberry and peach. Here’s a laugh for you, he blended the names of the fruit and called it “bleach” cobbler. Taste great, sounds horrifying! Go get yourselves some fall apples and bake yourself up a cobbler!

Which desserts are left to discuss? Crisps and crumbles. These two are not so easily distinguished. Both are baked fruit desserts with streusel toppings, nuts are optional on both crisps and crumbles. Unlike buckles there is no batter and it is not cakey, unlike cobblers, there is no dropped biscuits, dough, or batter on top. If we take a closer look at the streusel ingredients we will find the difference. In a crisp, the streusel topping contains oats; as the crisp bakes in the oven the oats crisp up. A crumble simple leaves out the oats. As this is a very minor difference, it does seem that the terms crisp and crumble can be interchangeable. In fact, a quick google search showed me that even a big famous television channel that takes about cooking a lot has an apple crumble recipe that contains oats. Interestingly, I had a more difficult time finding a crisp recipe not including oats. In fact, I had to search the phrase, “no-oat crisp recipe,” to have any luck. So, while the terms crisp and crumble may be interchangeable, it seems to be one way. Crisps with oats are always called crisps, but crumbles (traditionally made without oats), may include oats.

Well, now that we have that all cleared up (and I didn’t even mention Clafoutis!), is my apple crisp an apple crisp after all? Here is my recipe, I have been using for over 8 years, and it was given to me by a friend:

For the filling:
2-1/2 lb. apples (about 6 medium), peeled, quartered, cored, and sliced to yield about 6 cups
2 to 3 Tbs. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tbs. all-purpose flour

For the crisp topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 Tbs. brown sugar
2 Tbs. granulated sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (I like pecans)
4 oz. (8 Tbs.) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled

Heat the oven to 350°F.

To make the filling:

In a 9-inch pie pan that’s 2 inches deep (or a similar baking pan), toss the apples with the sugar to taste, cinnamon, and flour.

To make the topping:

In a medium bowl, mix together all the topping ingredients with your fingers or a pastry cutter until small pebbly pieces of butter are distributed throughout the mixture. Sprinkle the entire mixture over the apples. Bake until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling and tender, about 1 hour and 15 min. for a large crisp and 1 hour for individual crisps. Cool slightly before serving.

Notice anything missing from the ingredient list? Oats… My crisp isn’t even a crisp! I have always called it a crisp, because that is how my friend titled the recipe when she emailed it to me years ago. I didn’t look at my recipe until after I researched all the types of dessert. After my google search showed me that crisp recipes nearly always include oats, I was pretty confident mine included oats as well. I was pretty surprised when I opened my recipe (I haven’t made it since last fall), and scanned the ingredient list and saw oats were missing! It appears I have two options, start calling my dessert by its real name, Apple CRUMBLE, or just add some oats.

Actually, I searched my entire recipe cache and I did find an apple crisp recipe (as yet untried) that did have oats on the ingredient list. Perhaps I will bake both for an epic apple crumble v. apple crisp bake-off! What is your favorite fruit dessert to make in the fall?

There are still seats available in these great classes this summer at ISAC! Click the links below to register now.

English Over-Piped Elegant Wedding Cake with Ceri Griffiths, 11/7-8

Unicorn Bliss Cookie Collection with Sandra Beltran; 11/18

Art Deco Cookie Collection with Sandra Beltran; 11/19

Bohemian Love Cookie Collection with Sandra Beltran; 11/19

Sweetly yours,

Stephanie

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