Fruit Cobbler Without The Fat

Photo: Flavor Walk

Fruit cobblers are scrumptious and scream summer is near! But, usually, these tasty cobblers are made with a stick of butter. Nowadays, I try to eat healthy about 90% of the time, so I make a cobbler recipe that only requires buttering the baking pan. You can use any fruit, such as a peeled and diced apple, or peach, or my favorite, blueberries. A combination of blueberries, seedless raspberries, and blackberries will also do. My recipe yields one or two servings, so you don't have to wait for visitors to make it. Without the usual butter in a cobbler, it's not too decadent to devour all of it by yourself. You are still eating dessert (i.e., sugar), though, so you may not want to bake the cobbler every day. But gee whiz, sometimes we just crave a little treat:😋

Fruit Cobbler Without the Fat

Ingredients: 

Fruit Filling --

1/2 cup of berries (or 1 peach or 1 apple)

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon all-purpose unbleached flour

a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg

a squirt of lemon

Cobbler Streusel Topping --

2 tablespoons unbleached flour

1 tablespoon of finely crushed walnuts.

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 - 3 tablespoons of buttermilk (or milk if it's all you have)

If you like cinnamon, you can sprinkle some in the topping.

Optional: 1 tablespoon of Quaker oats if you feel like tossing it in.

Directions:

1) In a mixing bowl, use a fork to combine all the ingredients for the fruit filling.

2) In a 2nd mixing bowl, whisk together the streusel topping ingredients.

3) Butter a baking pan or dish (an 8-inch, 9-inch, or 10-inch square baking pan, a pie pan, or a loaf pan all work). Pour in the fruit filling.

3) Spread the streusel topping evenly over the fruit filling.

4) Bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 20 - 25 minutes. Watch for the cobbler to bubble and the topping starting to turn brown. After removing it from the oven, let it cool for about 10 minutes before eating.

You may also enjoy:

A Milk Cake

A Blazer Paired With Jeans

Splurge Like A Savvy Shopper

7 Things I Won't Buy Anymore

Dried Plum Pudding/Fruit Spread

With 3 pounds of dried plums (don't ask😁) I'm looking at plum recipes. One for prune pudding from Southern Living looks promising. It's more of a topping or fruit spread than a pudding, and I used dried plums, not dried prunes ... but close enough! Prunes are dried Italian plums ... not as juicy or round as regular plums. You see both at the grocery store. Below is the tweaked recipe.

Dried Plum Fruit Spread (or pudding if you will:)

Ingredients:

1 cup dried plums, tightly packed

2/3 cup sugar (I used 1/3 cup of this Stevia mixture.)

1 star anise

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

3 tablespoon cornstarch

Juice of 1 lemon (I cheated with 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice.)

Directions:

1) Soak the cup of dried plums in a saucepan with 2 cups of boiled hot water for 1 hour. They plump up.

2) Next turn on the heat, bring to a boil and simmer for 8 minutes.

3) Let cool down and transfer to a food processor or blender, add another cup of boiled hot water and pulse a few times to break the plums down, leaving some chunks. Return to the saucepan.

4) Remove 1/3 of the mixture and put it into a separate bowl to make a cornstarch slurry. This step is to avoid cornstarch lumps in the sauce.

5) To 1/3 of the plum mixture, add the juice of one lemon and stir it together. Next add 3 tablespoons of cornstarch and mix until smooth. Set aside.

6) To the main pot of plum mixture in the saucepan add 2/3 cup sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, and star anise. Stir to combine. Turn the heat back on and simmer for 5 minutes.

7) While it's simmering, pour the cornstarch slurry into the main plum mixture in the pot and continue stirring. After it thickens, remove the star anise and let the pudding/fruit spread cool. 

Store in a canning jar and use it on toast or whatever else you like. The plums will give you fiber, vitamin C, and heart-healthy phytochemicals to lower inflammation.

Although not an English cake (which the Brits call pudding), plum pudding/fruit spread seems very European with subtle flavors! Stay tuned for other plum recipes as my kitchen becomes plum city for a while.💜

You may also enjoy:

Low Fat, Sugar-Free Eggnog

Mini Pecan Pies A/K/A Tassies

Kally's Kentucky Fruitcake Is The Best Ever

Let's Ease Into Christmas With Bette Midler