Differences Between a Crisp, a Crumble, a Cobbler, and a Brown Betty | Blue Flame Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between a crisp crumble and a cobbler? ›

Cobbler: A fruit dessert made with a top crust of pie dough or biscuit dough but no bottom crust. Crisp/crumble: In Alberta, the terms are mostly interchangeable. Both refer to fruit desserts similar to cobbler but made with a brown sugar streusel topping sometimes containing old-fashioned rolled oats.

A brown betty is similar to a crisp or crumble, except the topping is layered into the fruit mixture before baking for an intensely crunchy effect. Food Network Kitchen's Grilled Rhubarb Brown Betty is warm, sweet and super-crisp — excellent when served with a scoop of strawberry ice cream.

Like an apple crisp, an apple crumble is a baked fruit dessert with a layer of topping. But unlike the crisp, the crumble topping rarely includes oats or nuts. Instead, a crumble's topping is more like streusel, made with flour, sugar and butter.

Cobbler is usually topped with batter or biscuits in lieu of crust. Cobbler's name comes from its sometimes cobbled texture, which is a result of spooning or dropping the topping over the fruit rather than distributing it equally. This way, the filling can peek through.

This has led some historians to believe that Betty was the name of the cook and creator of the recipe and that brown was in reference to her skin color.

Crisp and crispy continued their closely parallel lives, with crisp becoming more associated with cold weather, stiff vegetation, and a sharp manner; and crispy increasingly attaching itself to food, in particular to food that had been crisped – rendered crisp, rather than inherently crisp.

Apple crisp is a dessert made with a streusel topping. In the US, it is also called apple crumble, a word which refers to a different dessert in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and often oats and brown sugar, ginger, and/or nutmeg.

Cobbler is sometimes described as a kind of fruit pie, but strictly speaking, the two are different. Pies are made from pastry, rather than biscuit batter, and they are fully encased, with a crust at the top and the bottom, while cobblers typically only have a topping.

Pandowdy. A pandowdy is another deep dish stewed fruit dessert similar to a cobbler but made with a different technique.

Slow and steady wins the crisp and crumble race. Baking in a moderate (350-375˚F) gives the fruit time to break down into that saucy goodness. Go too hot and the crumble topping with get too dark before the fruit is ready.

What is an American cobbler? ›

Cobbler has been around in America the longest of the three desserts; the Oxford Companion to Food dates its inception back to the 1850s. By the mid-19th century, it had become the dish we know now: fruit baked in the oven with some form of dough.

Apple Crisp is very much like apple pie in that it doesn't NEED to be refrigerated, but the shelf life will be extended if you do store it in the refrigerator. I recommend storing it on the countertop for up to two days, or up to four days in the refrigerator.

Betty. Whereas crisps and cobblers are made up of a layer of fruit with either a streusel or pastry topping, with apple betty and its variations, we start constructing desserts made of alternating layers of fruit and pastry—or in this case crumbs.

While both are fruit desserts that can be made in the oven in a baking dish, or on a stovetop skillet, cobblers and crisps have nuanced differences, including: Exterior: Cobblers are denser due to the biscuit dough topping and base, while crisps use oats and a streusel topping, making them lighter.

A brown betty is both layered and topped with sweet butter crumbs. The crumbs should be dry to absorb between the layers while remaining crunchy on top. Breadcrumbs or graham-cracker crumbs are used in this dessert. A buckle is generally made with berries folded in cake batter before baking with some crumb topping.

Crisps are essentially crumbles with the addition of oats and optional nuts, which causes the topping to “crisp” in the oven. Due to the higher ratio of oats to flour, crisps are often enjoyed for breakfast and are just as tasty eaten cold from the fridge as they are warmed up in the oven.

However, we also love adding porridge oats for extra chewiness, as in these recipes for very-berry oat crumble and American-style apple crisp. Chopped and toasted nuts such as pecans, almonds or hazelnuts also make a lovely addition to a traditional crumble, for taste as well as an extra-crunchy texture.

A crisp is “a type of dessert consisting of fruit baked with a crumble topping,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary's definition, citing an early use in a 1916 recipe for an apple crisp with a topping of butter, sugar, and flour that's mixed together by rubbing your fingertips “*ntil crumbly.” Often, at least ...

Apple crisp is a dessert made with a streusel topping. In the US, it is also called apple crumble, a word which refers to a different dessert in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and often oats and brown sugar, ginger, and/or nutmeg.