My brother made me an apple crumble. I've heard it called betty, crisp, cobbler, grunt, etc.

[applegrove]

Last edited Mon May 18, 2020, 11:21 PM - Edit history (2)

What do you call it regardless of the fruit used? And where do you live? Because it could be a regional thing.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. In these parts (Minnesota) it's usually called crisp or cobbler.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. 'Crumble' cake, or peach cobbler.

[yellowdogintexas]

15. I am from KY and live in Texas. It is always known as a crisp. I have heard of crumble also

it just wasn't used locally.

I beg to differ on "cobbler" Cobbler is made with pie crust, preferably on the bottom and the top of the fruit. That bottom crust in the corners.....Gift of the Gods.

My mother made a peach cobbler that would stop traffic! I am not as skilled with pie crust as she was but she taught me how to make the filling.
Edited to add:
So I had to look up the difference between a fruit pie and a fruit cobbler. The Pie is firmer so it can be sliced and look pretty on the plate; usually it will have a thickener of some kind. The Cobbler has much more syrup, you use a big spoon to get it out of the dish and you serve it in a bowl (you don't have to worry about it looking pretty on a plate!) Also, for some reason I have never seen a round cobbler! Everyone made cobbler in a square or rectangular dish. Pi R Round - Cobbler R Square

[ms liberty]

26. My mother always made cobblers in a round dish

It was more of a deep pan or pot really, metal or aluminum, no handles, about 4 or 6 inches deep, slightly narrower at the bottom than the top. She never put a crust at the bottom. Crisps and crumbles were always in one of those large rectangular pyrex dishes. Pies were always round, though.

[SWBTATTReg]

35. interesting...our definition or use of the word cobbler differs somewhat. In the Ozarks (where I am

primarily from (and most of the cobblers made)), the concept of using crust on top and the bottom of the cobbler wasn't important, the cobbler crust (and topped off w/ butter) was mixed in pretty liberally (crunchy chunks included (the best part) throughout the peach or blackberries or raspberries (or whatever you had out there in season) mix (almost kind of the flour in a chicken dumpling recipe). Sometimes we added oatmeal to the pie filling mix (along w/ the flour). This way, after the cobbler was made, you would have tasty chunks of crunchy crust intermixed w/ the filling. Wonderful especially when heated up and served w/ vanilla ice cream.

I guess since we didn't have easy access to a store (grandmothers), the lining/fine tuning of crust on the bottom and top wasn't essential. I don't know, my great grandma or grandma aren't here no longer to ask. I'm sure it was a regional thing or the way they were taught.

Regional differences means different things to differ people. I never heard of 'fruit cobbler', it sounds weird, I've always known it as peach cobbler or just 'cobbler' (or raspberries/blackberries ... fruit cobbler does make sense though).

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Crisp up here in Maine. Mom was from PA, also said crisp.

[jpak]

4. Crisp

With vanilla Icecream

September in Maine

Yum

[dawg day]

5. Apple brown Betty uses brown bread

For the crumble, at least in my recipe.

[applegrove]

11. Okay. Got it.

[yellowdogintexas]

16. So that is how it got its name!

I always wondered about that. Silly me I figured it had molasses or something in it

[Phoenix61]

6. Saw an article about the difference in a

crumble and a cobbler. For crumble the fruit goes on the bottom and the batter goes on top. For cobbler, the batter goes in first and the fruit goes on top. Not sure who decided all that but that’s what it said.

[applegrove]

10. Some fruits carmelize better than others i guess. nt

[justgamma]

7. Iowa here.

A crisp is when the topping consists of oatmeal and brown sugar and butter. A cobbler is more of a cake mixture.

[applegrove]

8. Okay thanks. So what is a grunt?

[cayugafalls]

13. From Food.com

“In olden days this pudding was cooked in a Dutch oven hanging over an open fire. The name "Grunt" presumably came from the sound the pudding made as it bubbled and grunted beneath the biscuitlike topping.”

https://www.food.com/recipe/apple-grunt-42229

[applegrove]

14. Thanks.

[Massacure]

9. A crumble sits somewhere in between

[Freddie]

12. Just looked it up

A crisp has a flour/sugar/oats/butter topping; a crumble omits the oats. A cobbler is more of a cake or biscuit with fruit.

[yellowdogintexas]

17. I have made those with the cake bottom. We always called those a "dump cake"

They are convenient because you can use a cake mix instead of mixing up flour etc. I like them, but prefer the double pie crust version of a cobbler.

Some folks use bisquits (home made or canned) on the top. Not bad if the fruit is really good.

[dawg day]

28. You can make those dump cakes in a cast-iron pot over a fire-

A friend of mine makes them on Girl Scout camping trips, though packing a cast-iron pot isn't something I'd do on a camping trip!

[smirkymonkey]

23. Yes, that's how I understand it.

I went through a period in NYC where i was making fruit crisps every few days (flour, brown sugar, butter, fresh fruit).

I would get what ever was fresh and seasonal at the farmers market and throw it all together in a baking pan w/ a crisp topping and then, once baked, serve w/ vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.

It was such a perfect dessert. In fact, I am kind of getting inspired to make some again. I love fruit desserts.

[Rhiannon12866]

18. Apple Crisp here in New York

One of my favorites, though it does take awhile to peel and slice all those apples - since I have to remember that the apples cook down. I use Empire Apples, read those were recommended and found they work well.

[applegrove]

19. Sounds delicious.

[Rhiannon12866]

20. I also kind of gild the lily - I like it with whipped cream...

[applegrove]

21. Yummy. You know what whipped cream goes great with? Gingerbread cake.

Your gilding just reminded me of that. Oh i will make it for my dad when this is all over. My mom used to make it all the time.

[Rhiannon12866]

22. Oh, I love gingerbread, too!

Actually, I like whipped cream on pretty much anything, LOL.

And I hope that you get to see your Dad before too long!

[dewsgirl]

24. Florida, Apple Crisp.

[CentralMass]

25. Apple crisp in New England.

[sinkingfeeling]

27. There are differences between all those....

https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/the-difference-between-cobblers-crumbles-crisps-and-buckles/

[dawg day]

29. I had an "apple buckle" in England, and it wasn't very sweet at all

It was good, but I had to put vanilla ice cream on it to make it more "American-sweet".

[applegrove]

36. Thanks.

[whistler162]

30. Moreplez

[Nay]

31. Florida. Apple crisp. nt

[Aristus]

32. I grew up calling it apple cobbler.

There are parts of the South where they call it apple pan dowdy. I would never, ever eat anything with 'dowdy' in the name...

[stopwastingmymoney]

33. I make Crisp

Which definitely has oatmeal in the topping too

I think it’s mainly because of my go-to red checkered cook book. Doesn’t everybody have that one?

[lillypaddle]

34. Yep, best cookbook ever (Better Home & Gardens)

Unfortunately, I laid it on one of my burners and then proceeded to turn the wrong burner on - set it on fire. Had to toss it, but my son got me a new, updated paperback version. Recipes with less fat and calories ... I never use it. haha

I google recipes and use those instead.

[OriginalGeek]

38. My mom had it

and blasphemed against it regularly.

Maybe that's why when I got married to a woman whose mother was in incredible cook, I went from 125 pounds to about 225 inside of 7 years. MIL had that book too but I promise nothing from my mother's kitchen would be recognizable to anything from MIL's kitchen. I'm glad mom lived in Texas, 1100 miles away, so she wouldn't see how differently I praised MIL's cooking.

[OriginalGeek]

37. my mother in law made Apple Brown Bettys

and they were like apple filling in cakey pie dough but baked all on one sheet with lots of butter and sugar and cinnamon on top. They came off the sheet as one self-contained unit each. Or in my case, 2 units each. If my wife wasn't looking.

I've always thought of crisps and crumbles and cobblers as a different thing entirely in that they were baked in a dish and scooped out by the spoonful. Or, in my case, the 2 spoonsfull.

MIL was from Indiana and I'm sure began her cooking career there but she moved to Florida in her late teens and got married to a Georgia man and had 2 kids (one of whom is now my wife) and somehow managed to completely avoid passing any cooking knowledge on to her daughter. I wish I had paid more attention when she was cooking - maybe I could have absorbed something. She made everything from scratch and her cakes and pies were star quality.