A cookie-like cobbler for dessert tonight
Inspired by Marian Burros’s better dessert (don’t tell the torte).
I am ELATED that my best pal Sarah Jampel will be contributing one dessert recipe a month to 40 Ingredients Forever. Her recipes are exacting—she’s King Arthur Baking Company’s Recipe Development & Test Kitchen Manager—and so lovable, each could become a new family tradition.
Baking Sarah’s desserts feels like a hug from a friend you miss so much, probably because these days we live hundreds of miles apart and I miss her every day. Collaborating here is the closest we get to working together again (the fun we used to have!), so thank you for subscribing and making that possible for us.
From Sarah (AKA SJ):
Crisp as the edge of a cookie, this cobbler practically cracks open with the hard tap of a spoon to reveal juicy, bright berries underneath.
It isn’t fluffy like a biscuit-ed cobbler, soft like a cakey version, oaty like a crisp, or bitsy like your usual crumble. Inspired by Marian Burros’s Plum Crumble (the better Marian Burros recipe, in my opinion1), its cookie-cake texture comes from the ingredients (cornmeal!) as well as the method, where melted butter gets poured over the lean dough right before baking.
The butter melds the topping into a unified cookie cap, encourages browning, releases steam to create softness beneath that shattering crust, and adds richness and flavor to the fruit below. (What can’t “a bit” of butter do?)
Crispy Cornmeal Blueberry Cobbler
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