I saw a photo of a Banana Bread Cobbler in an issue of Southern Living and immediately knew I had to give it a try, since I am a big fan of both cobblers and banana bread. As I read through the recipe, I realized it wasn’t what I expected it to be. I assumed it would be something along the lines of a bread pudding with a streusel on top, using a loaf of banana bread as a base. Instead, this dessert has a cake base that is topped with slices of fresh bananas. The bananas are topped with a streusel and everything is baked until the cobbler is tender and the topping is crunchy.

Over the course of trying the recipe, I made some big changes to the original recipe. I cut down the amount of butter in the recipe by half, used a combination of buttermilk and milk in the banana bread base, and added cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla to spice up the overall flavor and make it more like my favorite banana breads. I also used fewer bananas than the original recipe suggested because too many bananas tend to make this dessert get a little mushy, especially the leftovers a day or two after baking.

So, although it may sound like an unusual combination, this is a delicious dessert. The cake at the bottom is tender and flavorful, and a great backdrop to hold everything together. The streusel topping is delicious and crunchy, and the toasted pecans are a fantastic addition to the dessert, both in terms of flavor and texture. The bananas really stand out, too. This was great on the first day when it was still warm, but tasted just as good as leftovers served at room temperature. I ate mine plain, but I can see how a scoop of ice cream, a bit of hot fudge and some whipped cream could turn this cobbler in to a great base for a riff on a banana split.
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Pears don’t always get the appreciation they deserve when it comes to baking. A ripe pear is juicy and tender, and no matter how tasty, it can be difficult to imagine a ripe pear holding up as well as an apple in a pie or cobbler or other fruit-heavy dish. But pears can really shine in baked goods, with their sweet and delicate flavor. The trick is usually just to save the very ripest pears for eating and take those that are still a little bit firm (i.e. will not squish under light pressure) and bake with those.

I used a mixture of fresh pears and whole cranberries in this cobbler. Both fresh and frozen cranberries can be used. The combination of winter fruits in a dessert that is served hot is the perfect dish for a cold evening by the fire. The fruit mixture is lightly sweetened with brown sugar and even more lightly spiced with ground cinnamon. I didn’t want to overdo the spices to allow the great flavors of the sweet pear and tart cranberries to come through clearly. A little cornstarch helps ensure that the juices from the pears thicken up just a little during baking.

The topping for this cobbler is similar in consistency to a cookie dough. This means that it is difficult to spread onto the fruit, unlike more cake-like batters. Instead, break the dough up into chunks with your fingers and distribute them evenly over the fruit. You should have enough to just about cover the entire cobbler and the topping will spread as it bakes, giving the dessert a “cobbled-together” appearance.
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The only real problem I have with pears is that they bruise easily. They are juicy, have great flavor and go well with a huge variety of sweet and savory dishes. The bruising is a problem, though, because it really has an impact on the appearance of sliced pears and - at the risk of sounding a bit silly - a cheese plate just doesn’t look the same with a bunch of bruised pears on it. Fortunately, there is at least one great use for slightly bruised, but still ripe, pears: pear butter.

Pear butter is basically a very thick, smooth applesauce-type dish that is made with pears. It gets the name “butter” from how silky smooth the finished puree is. I was inspired to make a batch after smelling the wonderful scents of Apple Cider Butter being cooked at the Smuckers factory last week, as well as by the fact that I had a bunch of bruised Bosc pears sitting on my kitchen counter when I returned from the trip. You can use any variety of pears for this.

The butter is easy to make: just cook the pears down with a little spiced cider and puree it. I always put pear butter through a strainer at least once to make sure it is as smooth as possible. I don’t add any extra sugar, but if you prefer yours a little sweeter, feel free to add in 1/4 cup or so of brown sugar. You can taste the spices from the cider - cinnamon, cloves, etc. - in the finished butter, but I add in a little bit extra to keep the flavors strong. This will keep well in the fridge for about a week (maybe two, if stored in an airtight container) and can be used as a spread for English muffins, biscuits, toast, pancakes and even savory things like pork chops (very tasty!).
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Apple pie is one of my favorite desserts no matter what time of the year it is, but when fall rolls around I start to move it up in the rotation. But, even though I can be quick with a crust, apple pies do take a little bit of time to put together when you start to compare them to other apple desserts, including apple crisp, so I often make crisps as a quicker, homey alternative to apple pie on a cool fall evening.The full disclosure here is that I will take apple crisp any day of the week, just as I would with apple pie. I’m just trying to make it sound as easy as possible - and it is easy to make - so that you’ll be tempted to try making your own batch even on a busy weeknight. Especially on a busy weeknight, actually, since it’s so satisfying.

This apple crisp has a little bit of a healthy edge to it, or perhaps I should say a healthy topping. The crisp topping is made with whole wheat flour, oats and a bit of ground flaxseed, as well as with brown sugar and spices. You could leave out the flaxseed if you don’t have any on hand. The filling is lightly sweetened with sugar and apple cider. It is very similar to an apple pie filling because it contains a little bit of cornstarch to thicken the juices up during baking. This makes the crisp a lot easier to serve since the filling will stick together in nice, neat (well, neat for a crisp) scoops without juices running everywhere. Be sure to serve it warm and, if you’re feeling decadent, ice cream or whipped cream is never a bad match for a dessert like this one.

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Fresh figs are a very easy fruit to work with because they need very little prep to use them and are naturally very sweet. This natural sweetness makes figs very tasty, but it also makes them pair well with other fruits, as the jammy flavor of the figs can enhance fruits of similar flavors and add sweetness to other fruits that don’t have much of their own. The plums that I paired figs with in this fruit cobbler fall into the former category, as the are nice and sweet on their own, but have a rich flavor that goes very well with the figs.

There are many ways to make a cobbler topping. My usual method is to make a biscuit-like topping similar to scone dough and dot it over the fruit, creating a “cobbled together” look. For this cobbler, I used a thinner batter that has more in common with a cake batter than a biscuit dough. The cobbler rises during baking into a soft, moist, vanilla-scented layer that really soaks up the juices from the fruit well.

You’ll note that I suggest adding some cinnamon to the filling as an option in the recipe. I prefer to leave the cinnamon out most of the time, but the cinnamon gives the cobbler just enough spice to make it taste like fall - which is a great thing to achieve if you live somewhere that it is already starting to get cold this time of year.

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A clafoutis is somewhere between a cake and a custard. It’s a french dish, a baked dessert (although you can make savory clafoutis as well) that has lots of milk and eggs in it and is held together with a little flour for added stability. In general, clafoutis have a great eggy flavor to them and go well with a variety of different fruits. Pears are one of my favorites, but for a summer fruit, ripe strawberries work very well in the dish.

I usually make big clafoutis, using pie plates or quiche dishes, and cutting the clafoutis into slices for serving. This time around, I decided to make my clafoutis in individual dessert cups and produce single-serving sizes. I used whole strawberries - minus the green tops - and placed them in the bottom of each dish. I fit three into each and wrote the recipe that way, but if your strawberries are unusually large or unusually small, you might want to use one less or a few more. You basically want to cover the bottom of the cup with whole berries. I filled each dish with the custard mixture and baked.

The finished clafoutis were amazing when still warm from the oven. The custardy portion of the clafoutis was smooth, soft and had notes of both egg and vanilla. It also picked up a bit of strawberry juice that the berries released during baking. The berries were tender, but not mushy. The whole thing reminded me a bit of strawberry shortcake and a bit of the strawberry bread pudding I made not too long ago. This dish doesn’t take long to make and works well for breakfast, dessert and an afternoon snack.
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