The crumble and other “family” members, rearrange cooked fruit and dough in a variety of ways. They are so simple to make and make excellent use of fruits at the height of their season – and let's face it – warm fruit is completely intoxicating!
The Crumble "Family":
Crumble — a British dessert in which raw fruit is topped with a crumbly pastry mixture and baked. One reference says a crumble is like a crisp, but not as rich.
Crisp — a deep-dish fruit dessert made with a crumb or streusel topping.
Cobbler — a spoon pie (more like a fruit stew with dumplings), in which biscuit dough is dropped onto the fruit and baked. This dish got its name because the lumps of cooked dough resembled cobblestones.
Brown Betty — a baked layers of spiced, sugared fruit with buttered bread crumbs mixed in with the fruit and scattered on top.
Clafoutis — a French cobbler, with fruit on the bottom, custard, and a rough batter crust baked on top
Grunt/Slump — a spoon pie, with biscuit dough on top of stewed fruit, it is made on a stovetop not baked. In Massachusetts, they were known as a grunt (thought to be a description of the sound the berries make as they stew). In Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island, the dessert was referred to as a slump.
Pandowdy — a spoon pie, with fruit on the bottom and a rolled crust on top, which is broken up to allow the juices to come through.
Buckle — the fruit is generally folded into (or sprinkled onto) cake batter and then covered with a topping similar to that found on a crisp; the cake batter ”buckles” as it bakes.
These desserts are rustic, warm and wonderful. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and you have created the perfect summer dessert. Once you learn the "recipe" for the simple topping you can make these desserts easily from memory. The crumble topping can also replace a top crust on a fruit pie.
Here is a handy link :
Fruit Crumble Recipes
Cobblers, Crisps, Crumbles, and More
