EASY CLASSIC Apple Cobbler

Apple Cobbler is one of the easiest and most delicious American apple desserts you can make! Start with 5-6 apples and top it with the easiest one bowl or food processor Thermomix drop batter and bake! That's it. I promise this is the less complicated but no less delicious cousin of an apple pie! This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader.

This apple cobbler dessert recipe is so simple and delicious and if you find yourself with half a dozen apples that need using up and were rapidly wrinkling (as I did!) then this is the perfect recipe. This apple cobbler is based on the recipe that I used to make for a Southern American restaurant in Sydney. It is so simple but I promise that when you pull this out of the oven, it will be so delicious that you will want to make it again and again and again.

What is the difference between an apple cobbler, apple pie and apple crumble? Apple cobbler has a fruit filling but is topped with a drop or cake dough with soft, golden crust. Apple pie has a pastry crust on the top and bottom with a spiced apple filling. Apple crumble is similar to an apple crisp and is made of a baked apple base topped with a crumbled mixture of flour, butter and sugar and sometimes oats. Crumbles have a crunchier top and a soft filling on the bottom.

• Other Delicious Apple Recipes You Might Like:
• Apple Pie With Caramel Apple Sauce
• Apple Crumble Slice
• Dutch Apple Pie
• Apple Shortbread Slice
• Bakery Apple Slice

The other day on our daily dog walk we bumped into our neighbours that live on a parallel street to us. Rita and Paolo are both retired but very active. Zumba-loving Paolo is gregarious and we call him the Mayor of our suburb. Stand outside talking to him and he'll call out hello to half a dozen people walking and driving past. Rita is quieter but still chatty and she is a gifted writer.

That day Rita was standing out the front and we were talking to her when she suddenly remembered something. "Wait here, Paolo wants to ask you a question!" she said.

Paolo emerged from the house with his fingers locked in a peace sign on both hands. That's his standard greeting (also why we call him "The Mayor"). He explained that while he was looking for another neighbour. She had offered to buy him some free range eggs from the country market which were supposed to be very good. He had the eggs but now he owed her the cost of them. Except he hadn't seen her for a while and he didn't know where she lived. "Her name is Claire!" he said. "Sorry we don't know a Claire," we answered.

When we asked him what she looked like, his brow furrowed. "She is small like you and she has a dog and a baby," he said, "The dog looks like this brown one," he said pointing to Milo. "Or maybe this white one!" he said pointing to Teddy. He looked back and forth at the dogs and then shook his head as if trying to shake the cobwebs loose. We never got any closer to identifying the dog but we promised Paolo that we would look for a small blonde lady with a brown or white dog and a baby. Maybe holding eggs. He kindly gave us three of these free range eggs before we left. Two of those eggs went into this apple cobbler and the third I fried up and it was indeed delicious.

The next day Mr NQN came running into the kitchen from his office which is in the front of the house. "I think Claire just walked past our house!" he said excitedly. I asked him, "Was she blonde and did she have a dog and a baby?" and he nodded yes. And Paolo was right in a way about her dog looking like both Teddy and Milo. He was a toy poodle but caramel in colour so kind of between the two!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever trade or gift your neighbours food? And did you know the difference between apple pies, cobblers and crumbles?

Apple Cobbler

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves: 6-8 people

• 5 medium apples (around 750g/1.6lbs)
• 1 cup/250ml/8.8flozs water
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• 1/3 cup/75g/2.7ozs white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup/150g/5ozs plain all purpose flour
• 60g/2ozs white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 quarter teaspoon salt
• 75g/2.7ozs butter, cold, cubed
• 1 egg
• 150ml/5flozs milk (can use alternative milks too like skim, soy, oat and almond)

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Place the water, lemon juice and lemon zest into a medium saucepan. Peel, core and slice the apples into 8 half moon pieces and place these in the water while you are slicing up the rest of the apples. Add the sugar and cinnamon to the saucepan. Bring to a boil and then turn heat down to a simmer with the lid on. Cook until apples begin to soften (but are not mushy), around 20 minutes. There should still be still a little moisture in the bottom of the pan (ie not bone dry).

Step 2 -In a medium bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Rub butter into the flour mixture until you get small balls of butter. You can also pulse this in a food processor or Thermomix (speed #5, 10 secs). Whisk the egg and milk together and stir with a fork to make a drop batter. It will be have little lumps-that is totally fine, that's what we want!

Step 3 -Add apples to a casserole dish (I used a 26cm/2.4litre dish) and then drop big spoonfuls of batter onto the hot apples. You can leave gaps too. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.