By Pamela Lee, from the September 1999 Newsletter

I had some lovely ripe cherries and was really hungry for a pie. But it was hot, I was tired, and I did not feel equal to the task of mixing pie pastry, then rolling out a bottom and a top crust. It suddenly dawned on me that I could have my fruit and eat it, too (as it were) without all the attending bother by fixing a cobbler….

I began to anticipate the sweet satisfaction of baked fruit. I perused my collection of cookbooks and magazines and came up with a recipe that proved a winner. When the first cobbler was gone, I baked a variation, and then, another. Curious and hungry, with visions of delectable fruit, I made a crisp. With Stratton's whipping cream, I tried a fool.

Though I've limited this month's baking to cobblers, crisps, and fools, while studying recipes I learned a lot about baked fruit desserts, some with delightfully cozy names that conjure up vestiges of folk tales.

A cobbler is a baked fruit dessert that is topped with either biscuit or pastry dough. Though the type of dough can vary, a cobbler topping does not cover the fruit uniformly, rather it appears "cobbled" when baked to a scrumptious golden brown.

A crisp is covered with a batter that becomes crisp when baked. I had always assumed that oatmeal was a requisite ingredient in a crisp's topping, but reading recipes, I learned it was not essential. The crisp topping can be made with just butter, sugar, and flour. Nuts can also be added.

A crumble is topped with butter, sugar, flour, and oatmeal. A betty (or brown betty) is topped with buttered bread crumbs. A buckle's baked fruit is topped with yellow cake batter. To make a grunt, fruit is topped with drop biscuit dough, covered, and baked. With a plate cake, fruit is covered with rolled-out biscuit dough. After baking, the dessert is flipped out, upside down, onto a serving plate so the biscuit that was once on top is now on the bottom.

A fool is a lush, smooth, and satisfyingly mousse-like dessert. You can serve a fool in a handsome glass goblet, layer it parfait-style with fresh (unbaked) fruit, or you can spoon it over spongecake. A fool is an old fashioned dessert that is said to have come by its name because any fool can make one. Basically it is fruit puree and whipped cream, though one can extrapolate, adding liqueur, citrus zest, mint, or candied ginger.

Feel free to substitute whatever ripe fruit you've got on hand in these recipes. If you are not comfortable "winging it" with amounts of fruit and other ingredient, use a pie-filling recipe, then try my topping. With delicious, ripe summer fruit, it is difficult to fail. The cobbler recipe is an adaption of one from Cook's Illustrated Magazine.

A Winning Cherry Cobbler

The topping:
1 cup organic unbleached flour
1½ t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
6 T. unsalted butter, cut into ¼-inch pieces
5 - 6 T. milk
1 T. sugar

The filling:
4 cups (or 1 ¾ lbs.) sour cherries
1 ½ T. arrowroot
1 cup sugar
1 T. almond extract
1/8 t. allspice
1/8 t. cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Adjust the oven rack to the lower middle position.
2. The topping: Cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients by hand until the mixture is evenly cut into small crumbly pieces. Turn the crumbly butter-flour mixture into a bowl. Pour in 5-6 tablespoons of milk. Toss lightly with a fork until it is clumpy. Gently knead between pieces of saran wrap. Chill in the refrigerator while preparing the filling.
3. The filling: Combine the sugar, arrowroot, allspice and cinnamon; mix well. Then, toss the sugared ingredients with the cherries and almond extract. Pour the fruit mixture into an 8-inch square pan or a 9-inch round cake pan.
4. Roll the topping into a 10-inch square or circle, rolling the moist dough between two layers of saran or wax paper. Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter (or into squares with a knife) and lay the dough on top of the fruit. Sprinkle with the tablespoon of sugar.
5. Place the pan on a cookie sheet and bake until golden brown, about 45-55 minutes.

You can use almost any fresh ripe fruit in this crisp. I used a mixture of blueberries, sliced apricots, and nectarines. You can substitute wheat flour for my barley, and butter for my Spectrum Spread.

Fruit Crisp with a Wheat-free Topping

Filling:
7 cups prepared fruit
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1 t. grated lemon zest
1/3 - 1/2 cup sugar
1 t. vanilla extract

Topping:
1/4 lb. chilled Spectrum Spread (or unsalted butter)
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup barley flour (or unbleached wheat flour)
3/4 cup quick oatmeal (do not use instant)
¼ t. cinnamon
¼ t. nutmeg
¼ t. salt

1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Adjust the oven rack to the lower middle position.
2. The filling: Gently toss the fruit filling ingredients together in a large bowl, then transfer to a 10-inch pie pan (or an 11 x 7" cake pan).
3. The topping: In a large bowl, mix together all the topping's dry ingredients, blending well. Rub or cut the fat into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Spread the crumbly topping evenly over the fruit.
4. Bake for 40-60 minutes, until the topping is crisp but not burnt. If the crumbs begin to brown too quickly, cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil, but be sure to remove it at the end so the topping will indeed be crisp.

Note: For thicker filling, blend 2 T. arrowroot with the sugar.

Blueberry Fool

4 cups blueberries, rinsed, picked over, and drained
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3 T. fresh lemon juice
Pinch of salt
Generous pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
1 ¼ cups cold heavy cream

In a medium saucepan, combine the blueberries, brown sugar, lemon juice, salt, and nutmeg. Simmer over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the berries have released their juice and burst when lightly pressed with the spoon, about 6 minutes. You'll have about 3 cups at this stage. Increase the heat to high and reduce the mixture by half, stirring frequently to prevent scorching, 6-7 minutes. Pour the compote into a bowl and refrigerate until very cold, about 4 hours. Taste and adjust the flavorings if you like, remembering that flavors will be muted when you fold the mixture with the cream.

In a chilled bowl, whip the cream to firm but not stiff peaks. With a rubber spatula, gently fold 1¼ cups of the chilled compote into the cream just until incorporated. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to 24 hours. Just before serving, spoon the remaining compote over the fool.

Note: The blueberry compote portion can be made up to 3 days ahead.

From Fine Cooking Magazine, number 27; serves four.

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