Cobbler refers to a variety of dishes, particularly in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, consisting of a fruit or savoury filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a batter

Batter (cooking)

Batter is a semi-liquid mixture of one or more flours combined with liquids such as water, milk or eggs used to prepare various foods. Often a leavening agent such as baking powder is included to aerate and fluff up the batter as it cooks, or the mixture may be naturally fermented for this purpose...

, biscuit

Biscuit (bread)

A biscuit in the United States, and widely used in popular American English, is a small bread made with baking powder or baking soda as a chemical leavening agent rather than yeast....

, or pie crust before being baked. Unlike a pie

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

, cobbler never contains a bottom crust.

Origin

Cobblers may have originated in the early British American colonies. English settlers were unable to make traditional suet puddings due to lack of suitable ingredients and cooking equipment, so instead covered a stewed filling with a layer of uncooked plain biscuits

Biscuit (bread)

A biscuit in the United States, and widely used in popular American English, is a small bread made with baking powder or baking soda as a chemical leavening agent rather than yeast....

 or dumpling

Dumpling

Dumplings are cooked balls of dough. They are based on flour, potatoes or bread, and may include meat, fish, vegetables, or sweets. They may be cooked by boiling, steaming, simmering, frying, or baking. They may have a filling, or there may be other ingredients mixed into the dough. Dumplings may...

s, fitted together. When fully cooked, the surface has the appearance of a cobbled street. The name may also derive from the fact that the ingredients are "cobbled" together.

In the United States, varieties of cobbler include the Betty, the Grunt, the Slump, the Buckle, and the Sonker. The Crisp or Crumble

Crumble

A crumble is a dish of British and Irish origin that can be made in a sweet or savoury version, depending on ingredients used, although the sweet version is much more common. It also can be traced to American cuisine during the European colonization of the Americas. A sweet variety usually contains...

 differ from the cobbler in that their top layers are generally made with oatmeal. Grunts, Pandowdy, and Slumps are a New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 variety of cobbler, typically cooked on the stove-top or cooked in an iron skillet or pan with the dough on top in the shape of dumplings—they reportedly take their name from the grunting sound they make while cooking. A Buckle is made with yellow batter (like cake batter), with the filling mixed in with the batter. Apple pan dowdy is an apple cobbler whose crust has been broken and perhaps stirred back into the filling. The Sonker is unique to North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

: it is a deep-dish version of the American cobbler. In the Deep South

Deep South

The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...

, cobblers most commonly come in single fruit varieties and are named as such, such as blackberry, blueberry, and peach cobbler. The Deep South tradition also gives the option of topping the fruit cobbler with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream.

UK and Commonwealth

In the UK and Commonwealth, the scone-topped cobbler predominates and is found in both sweet and savoury versions. Common sweet fillings include apple, apple and blackberry and peach. Savoury versions, such as lamb, beef or mutton, consist of a casserole

Casserole

A casserole, from the French for "saucepan", is a large, deep dish used both in the oven and as a serving vessel. The word casserole is also used for the food cooked and served in such a vessel, with the cookware itself called a casserole dish or casserole pan...

 filling, sometimes with a simple ring of cobbles around the edge, rather than a complete layer, to aid cooking of the meat. Cheese or herb scones may also be used as a savoury topping.

Cobblers and crumbles were promoted by the Ministry of Food during the Second World War, since they are filling yet require less butter than a traditional pastry, and can be made with margarine

Margarine

Margarine , as a generic term, can indicate any of a wide range of butter substitutes, typically composed of vegetable oils. In many parts of the world, the market share of margarine and spreads has overtaken that of butter...

.

The Brown Betty

The American variant known as the Betty or Brown Betty dates from colonial times. In 1864 in the Yale Literary Magazine

Yale Literary Magazine

The Yale Literary Magazine, founded in 1836, is the oldest literary magazine in the United States and publishes poetry and fiction by Yale undergraduates twice per academic year.The magazine is published biannually...

it appeared with "brown" in lower case, thus making "Betty" the proper name. In 1890, however, a recipe was published in Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking Adapted to Persons of Moderate and Small Means with the word "Brown" capitalized, making "Brown Betty" the proper name. Brown Betties are made with bread crumbs (or bread pieces, or graham cracker crumbs), and fruit, usually diced apples, in alternating layers; they are baked covered, and have a consistency like bread pudding

Bread pudding

Bread pudding is a bread-based dessert popular in many countries' cuisine, including that of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Malta, Argentina, Louisiana Creole, and the southern United States...

.

In the Midwestern United States, Apple Betty is often a synonym for Apple Crisp.