How To Properly Prepare Fruit For A Cobbler

The biggest appeal of cobbler, other than the fresh fruit, is that it's easy to prepare, but that doesn't mean you can throw it together totally blind. With only the simplest of battered toppings and no other ingredients, the fruit filling is the star in cobbler recipes. It's a dish made to highlight the flavors of seasonal fruit, which means you want the fruit to be in the best shape possible to ensure a delectable filling that is not thin, not too thick, and studded with generous whole pieces. We spoke with Walleska Cianfanelli, the executive pastry chef at Wilton Sweet Studio, about the best way to prepare fruit for your cobbler.

Cianfanelli has a great checklist of simple rules for fruit cobbler. "Peel fruit only when necessary," she explains. "Peaches and apples benefit from peeling; berries do not." Cianfanelli also tells us that every piece of fruit needs to be chopped or trimmed to the same size, that way they cook at the same rate and you avoid smaller pieces getting too mushy. She recommends "toss[ing] the fruit with sugar, salt, and lemon juice to brighten flavor and color," but to also be diligent about adding starch to prevent a watery cobbler. Finally, Cianfanelli notes that macerating fresh fruit is an essential step in prepping your cobbler filling.

Macerating fruit refers to the process of mixing the fruit with sugar and letting it rest before cooking. "Macerating fruit with sugar for 30 minutes before helps draw out the juices," Cianfanelli says. "You can remove some liquid before adding the topping — this helps prevent a watery cobbler." Instead of discarding the excess liquid you can also strain it out and thicken the syrup by cooking it, before adding it back to the mixture.

This is also the time to add your lemon juice, as well as other spices and seasonings, so everything melds together as the sugar draws liquid from the fruit. "Use ingredients like vanilla, citrus zest, nutmeg, cardamom, or ginger to enhance the fruit flavor and give your cobbler more dimension," she recommends. By flavoring the liquid being drawn out, those spices will also end up "marinating" the fruit.

Finally Cianfanelli notes that a few firmer fruits like apples and pears can benefit from pre-cooking to ensure they are fully cooked through in the oven. This is another great time to add flavor by, for example, poaching pears in wine or tossing them with spices and sugar. But only do this with fruit that is quite firm or underripe. Cianfanelli warns that precooking will ruin the texture of berries and other soft fruit. Cobbler is already so easy as it is, so no reason to rush.