Cobblers Vs Crumbles Vs Crisps: The Simple Differences Between These Desserts

Whether you refer to them as cobblers, crumbles, or crisps, a warm, pie-like fruit-filled dessert is welcome at just about any table. Although their names are often used interchangeably, there's actually a difference between the three — and it's as simple as the different toppings they're made with. Their fillings are similar, usually a combination of sweetened seasonal fruit and butter, but what covers the fruit sets them apart.

Cobblers are made with biscuit dough that's dropped on top by the spoonful to form tasty clumps. A crumble, on the other hand, is sprinkled with a streusel topping. A crisp gets a similar finish, only with a denser streusel made with oats that crisp up when baked.

In general, these all have more in common than not, and depending on where you live, what you call them may just come down to regional differences. All three typically come served with either a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream and are associated with fresh summer fruits.

These baked goods can be made year-round, however, and some can even be savory. Take cobblers for example: In summer, you might use cherries or make an easy three-ingredient peach cobbler; in the fall, you can use apples or pears. While cobblers are normally made with biscuit or pie dough (sometimes even cake or pancake batter), you can get extra fancy and top your cobbler with store-bought cinnamon rolls. For a savory option, there's TikTok's viral chicken cobbler.

Unlike the thicker pastry on cobblers, crumbles are layered with streusel, which has a sandy, crumbly consistency, giving this dessert its name. Streusel can be as basic as a mixture of brown sugar, flour, and butter, but can also involve spices like cinnamon, along with some crunch from nuts. You can also take a shortcut and just combine butter with boxed cake mix for a two-ingredient streusel.

You'll usually find crumbles made in a deep baking or casserole dish, but they can also be cooked in ramekins or soufflé cups for serving in individual portions. For that matter, you can utilize your microwave for a quick and easy way to make an apple crumble without an oven. This method works just as well with other fruits, especially berries.

Crisps take the concept of a crumble and bring texture with the addition of oats in the streusel mix. As the oats in the topping bake, they get the crispy chew that this treat is named for. Crisps can be made with any type of fruit, but they're especially good with juicer varieties, allowing the liquid to blend in with the topping for an almost syrup-like element. Strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries are an excellent choice for this reason. If you don't have all the ingredients or just don't feel like whipping up your own streusel, try using granola instead as the cereal is most often made with a base of oats.

Along with cobblers, crumbles, and crisps, there are even more entries in this related family of baked fruit desserts. One that you may have heard of is called a Betty, more commonly known as brown Betty for the brown sugar it's flavored with. This dessert is a lot like a crumble or crisp, but instead of a streusel, it's topped with buttered breadcrumbs. The crumbs are also sandwiched between layers of the fruit underneath (most often apples), sometimes in the form of larger cubes, resulting in something akin to a fruity bread pudding.

A buckle is also made with a sweet fruit filling, but in this case, the fruit goes on top of a cake batter and is then topped with a streusel-like crumbly topping. As the fruit bakes, it sinks into the batter, causing its eponymous buckled appearance.

Other desserts in this category include the pandowdy, which is made with a full pie crust that gets broken and integrated into the fruit; a grunt, which uses the stovetop rather than the oven to steam its cobbler-like biscuit topping in a lidded pot; a slump, which uses the same method to cook as a grunt but replaces the biscuits with dumplings; and a sonker, which is a North Carolina specialty similar to a cobbler, but with dough "sunk" into the filling, which is often made with sweet potatoes, and served with a creamy vanilla dip.