Cherry, Apple, or Peach Cobbler?

I vividly remember the night (pre-Covid days) we were eating out with neighbors Harold and “Willie.” They have been married over 70 years and are both in their 90s, and I never fail to learn new things from them.

On the buffet there were countless desserts, but I had a hankering for cherry pie, a frequent treat in my Mennonite home growing up. But there was none among the selections I found. My husband is not into cherry pie so I never bother making it at home just for me.

Harold returned from the buffet with a dessert for his wife, who said she didn’t really want it, so I took a bite. And then another. It tasted similar to cherry pie but was its cousin: good old-fashioned cherry cobbler. Topped with a little vanilla ice cream, it was the combo of sweet and sour that finished off my meal perfectly. So I ate her whole dessert, with her permission. It was delicious. I don’t know why I had adopted an attitude toward cobbler as being a poor second cousin to actual pie, but my little attitude problem was corrected that evening.

So I went hunting for a good cherry cobbler recipe to share here, figuring they are legion and I was not wrong. I looked in four of my favorite Mennonite cookbooks, Mennonite Community Cookbook, More-with-Less Cookbook, Mennonite Country-Style Recipes and Kitchen Secrets and Mennonite Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley (all available on Amazon). I settled by modifying an old one from Mennonite Community Cookbook as follows:

Cherry Cobbler (Or any of several fruits)

¼ cup shortening (I used butter, softened)
¾ cup sugar (could easily cut to ½ cup)
1 egg
1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/3 cup milk (I used sour milk)
2 cups sour cherries, canned or frozen; substitute fresh or canned apples, peaches, according to season or your pantry

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

Cut in butter (or other shortening) into dry ingredients.

In another bowl, beat egg and milk; combine with flour mixture. Stir until flour mixture is wettened throughout and clings together.

Pour cherries into a greased, shallow, 9 x 9 inch baking dish. Sprinkle with lemon juice.

Drop cobbler batter [illustration below] in 6-9 large spoonfuls on top of cherries. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream, milk, or cream. Serves 6-9. (The suggestion for cream tells you how old that recipe is: most of us are not blessed to have cream on hand.)

Later I discovered a shorter recipe and concise instructions for “Quick Fruit Cobbler’” in More-with-Less. That recipe has you put the dough in the bottom of a greased baking pan, and then add fruit on top—which ends up on the bottom after baking. You could try making that with children or grandchildren and I’m guessing they’ll love the mystery of how the dough begins on the bottom and ends on top!

Note: I thought cobbler would surely be easier to make than making pie dough from scratch; the only thing that was less time consuming with the cobbler was not having to roll out the pie dough, which can be tricky depending on humidity, ingredients, and your own skill in rolling out dough. For a larger dish, try making a cobbler in a 9 x 12 inch pan with the recipe doubled, using any canned fruit you have on hand. That would make a far easier quick dessert than rolling out dough for two pies, and you have dessert for several meals!

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This recipe appeared earlier on Amish Wisdom blog, which closed down, so I’m sharing it here (just in case you’re wondering if you read this before.)

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Are there dishes you never tried but finally decided to try a bite and to your surprise it was yummy?