Plum Brown Butter Cobbler

Plums in a Cobbler? Oh, Yes!

Fruit cobblers can be made so many different ways and most of those will be good. For instance, when I grew up my mother only made cobblers with pie crust and I will always love that type, while I find that a biscuit topped cobbler is only good straight out of the oven because the biscuits lose their appeal once they’ve cooled. Then there are those kinds of cobblers made with a cake type of batter. They’re my least favorite.

But there’s one kind of cobbler I’ve been going back to over and over and over again because of it’s unique qualities. First of all, it’s extremely easy to make and that’s important in these hot days of summer when spending too much time in the kitchen is just no fun. A cobbler needs to come together quickly. But its success all rests in the final taste, right? I mean, who cares if something is easy to make but only tastes meh in the end? So many times I see recipes on trusted websites that are the most popular of all their recipes and it never fails that they are the easiest recipes to make, but are mediocre in taste. I’ve stopped looking at the popularity of recipes for this reason. So, when I tell you that a recipe is easy to make, I promise it will also be delicious, otherwise what is the point?

The basis for this recipe comes from Rebecca Rather. I first encountered it on David Lebovitz’s blog, but I have tweaked it to such a degree that it has now morphed into my own. Brown butter is poured into a big baking dish, the batter is poured over the butter without stirring. This is important – no stirring the batter into the brown butter.  

Sliced fruit is placed on top of the batter, which will rise over the fruit as it bakes. The original recipe is for peach cobbler and I’ve made it many times, but I picked up some tiny yellow and red plums at the farmers’ market and wanted to see how they’d work in a cobbler. I also bought some big black plums, so I used those, too. I’ve made this a couple of times now with different assortments of plums and they’re all great. Plums have now become my very favorite of all cobblers. The tart skins and the sweet flesh happen to bake up into the best cobblers I’ve ever tasted. They play against the sweet crust of the cobbler perfectly – even better than peaches. But I would not use the elongated Italian plums in this recipe. They don’t have the necessary tart/sweet combination needed here. I’ve also thrown some blueberries into the mix and that was good, but again, my favorite is all plums.

A liberal amount of brown sugar is sprinkled on top of the fruit and I also add sesame seeds. The outcome is so delicious I’ve actually stopped making any other kinds of cobblers. The edges are deeply caramelized, crunchy and gooey. I bake it for quite awhile in order to achieve this outcome. I’ve also started adding different kinds of flour in order to make the flavor more interesting. My favorite, so far, is a little rye flour. That’s what I used here and it added a noticeable complexity to the cobbler, but buckwheat flour, and whole wheat flour are also good. If you have none of those on hand, you can simply use more all purpose flour. I’ve done it and it’s still delicious. 

And last, but not least, is the brown butter. It is essential to the flavor. The cobbler would be lacking without it. I brown my butter by putting it in a large glass measuring cup, cover it with a damp paper towel and microwave it on high until it’s almost as brown as you’d like it. It will continue to get a little darker after it’s removed from the microwave. You can also brown your butter in a pot on the stovetop, but I find it’s the easiest to use the microwave. 

The success of this cobbler does hinge on one other thing: I bake it in a large baking dish – bigger than the standard 13 inches x 9 inches. The one I use is approximately 15 inches x 10 inches, very similar in size to this one .* While it can be baked in a smaller dish, it won’t turn out as well because the batter will be deeper and won’t have the room to spread out and crisp up. I know this from experience because I tried it in a 13 inches x 9 inches dish and while it wasn’t bad, by any means, it also wasn’t as good. The crisp top is one of the beauties of this recipe, and you want as much of it as you can get. You can also cut the recipe in half, bake it in a 9 inch x 9 inch dish and I’ve found that it works well.

Well, friends, there you have it: One of the best, if not the single best cobbler I’ve ever eaten. I know that many people love a scoop of ice cream on their cobbler and there’s no reason not to do that here, but I prefer mine plain or only with a spoonful of heavy cream on top because I think it’s simply perfect on its own.