What's the difference between a cobbler, crisp, crumble, buckle, and betty?

What's the difference between a cobbler, crisp, crumble, buckle, and betty? - Handshake Between Two People

I've heard all these terms at different times but never really understood the differences. What distinguishes various fruit-and-topping desserts such as a cobbler, crisp, crumble, buckle, or betty -- or are they all the same dish but with different quirky names?



Best Answer

Some of the terms may be regional but they do generally describe variations on a theme.

My general understanding of the differences are as follows:

Cobbler - A cobbler is generally a thickened fruit mixture with scone or biscuit-like top crust. Cobbler crusts, notably "Texas cobblers" can also be made with thinner batters that soak into the filling more than simply sitting on top.

This is an example of a blueberry cobbler with individual biscuits as a topping.

Blueberry cobbler with biscuit topping

This is a "Texas style" blueberry cobbler, where the batter rises up through the blueberry mixture.

Texas style blueberry cobbler

Crisp - A crisp is different as it has a "crispy" topping, usually made of a simple toasted mixture of butter, flour and sugar along with cornmeal or oats. The term is often interchangeable with "crumble".

This crisp has a topping of oats and optional nuts.

Blueberry crisp

Buckle - A buckle is significantly more cake-like with large pieces of fruit (usually blueberries) are suspended within. It often has a stresuel-like topping. In some circles, a buckle is also called a crumble.

This is a blueberry buckle with a crumb topping.

Blueberry buckle

Betty - Also known as a "Brown Betty" is made with bread crumbs mixed with butter sugar and used as both a bottom and top "crust". These are very often (if not usually) made with apples.

This is an apple Brown Betty.

Apple Brown Betty

Here's a great resource for the differences in the above and several other similar dessert items.




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Quick Answer about "What's the difference between a cobbler, crisp, crumble, buckle, and betty?"

Both contain fresh fruit and are covered with a streusel topping that gets baked. Crumble toppings, however, usually do not contain oats, whereas crisp toppings do. Cobbler: Cobblers are a fruit dessert baked with biscuit-style topping.

What is the difference between a crisp cobbler crumble and a buckle?

Buckle. More like a crumb cake than a syrupy crisp or crumble, a buckle is still all about the fruit. These streusel-topped cakes are usually baked one of two ways. You can pour the cake batter on the bottom of the pan and spoon the fruit over it or stir the fruit into the batter.

What is the difference between a cobbler and a Betty?

Betty. Whereas crisps and cobblers are made up of a layer of fruit with either a streusel or pastry topping, with apple betty and its variations, we start constructing desserts made of alternating layers of fruit and pastry\u2014or in this case crumbs.

Whats the difference between crumble crisp and cobbler?

Cobbler: A fruit dessert made with a top crust of pie dough or biscuit dough but no bottom crust. Crisp/crumble: In Alberta, the terms are mostly interchangeable. Both refer to fruit desserts similar to cobbler but made with a brown sugar streusel topping sometimes containing old-fashioned rolled oats.

What is the difference between Apple Betty apple crisp and apple crumble?

Apple Crumble is synonymous with Apple Crisp in the U.K. and Australia, but in Canada and the U.S., it is a slightly different dish. Like an apple crisp, an apple crumble is a baked fruit dessert with a layer of topping. But unlike the crisp, the crumble topping rarely includes oats or nuts.



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More answers regarding what's the difference between a cobbler, crisp, crumble, buckle, and betty?

Answer 2

This one's tricky, as there are some differences, but because different regions prefer one over the other, it's possible that some regions might conflate concepts under their preferred term. I thought I could easy answer the question, but a little bit of online research suggests it's pretty messy:

  • Betty (aka Brown Betty) : Originally used a butter/sugar/breadcrumb mixture, but I've seen it used for other streusel-like toppings. Often have both a bottom & top bready layer (fruit in the middle).
  • Buckle : Batter on bottom. May have fruit on top, or fruit in the middle with a streusel top.
  • Cobbler : Originally topped with a crusts like a drop-biscuit, so it bakes up like a cobbled street. I've seen it used for batter and pie crust-like toppings.
  • Crisp : Streusel topping. Some say it must contain oats, others say it shouldn't.
  • Crumble : Streusel topping (whatever your oat rules say isn't a Crisp)
  • Grunt : Slow cooked on a stove top (or campfire dutch oven), covered so it makes funny noises as it cooks and the fruit bubbles up and steams the topping.
  • Slump : Some say it refers to how it behaves when you try to serve it, but others say you cook the fruit down first, then top with a biscuit dough.

Some other terms that I only heard of when looking up what other's people take on these are:

Every reference I've found says that grunts and slumps are the same thing (even though the descriptions of the dishes vary by source). Pandowdy and Betty are frequently connected to each other in a similar way.

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Ron Lach, Harry Cunningham @harry.digital, cottonbro, Larissa Deruzzi