American Fruit Desserts: The Difference Between a Crisp, Brown Betty, Buckle, and More (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between a crisp and a brown betty? ›

Betty: A Betty (as in “Apple Brown Betty”) is similar to a crisp, but has no oats in its buttery crumb topping. And rather than having the topping solely on top of the fruit, it's layered throughout, then baked.

Moving a little further away from the crisp, cobbler and Betty, the buckle is more cake-like but made with the same fruit filling. Once the batter is made and poured into the dish, the fruit is placed on top of the batter.

Interior: Crisps get their name primarily from their crisp, streusel crumb topping, but the interior fruits can be slightly crispy as well. In contrast, cobblers are soft-centered and often include a biscuit dough bottom crust.

A charmingly old-fashioned dessert that deserves a comeback, a buckle is a single-layer cake with berries or cut-up fruit in the batter, giving it a "buckled," or indented, appearance.

A crumble (British English) or crisp (American English) is typically a dessert with a crumbly topping consisting of flour, butter, sugar, and sometimes oats, baked over a fruit filling. Apple and rhubarb are two popular varieties.

The name Brown Betty describes a type of teapot with common characteristics of red Etruria Marl clay, a transparent or dark brown Rockingham Glaze and a familiar portly body.

A buckle is a funny name for an old fashioned fruit studded coffee cake. Like many other desserts in the extended cobbler family buckles take their name from their appearance—grunts grunt as they cook, slumps slump when served, buckles—you guessed it—buckle.

A buckle is technically a coffee cake that has added fruit and a streusel topping, just like this one! Buckles got their name because after the cake bakes it falls on top, or "buckles". You can totally call this a blueberry coffee cake if you prefer!

A biscuit, pie, or cake-topped fruit dessert that's cooked in a covered Dutch oven or cast-iron skillet on the stove. Grunts are very similar to cobblers, but they are STEAMED instead of BAKED.

What Is a Cobbler? Cobblers differ from crisps or crumbles in that they typically have a biscuit topping covering the cooked fruit. The biscuits are usually dropped onto the fruit in small rounds, giving it the appearance of a cobbled road, hence the name.

What is the difference between blackberry crisp and blackberry cobbler? ›

Crisp vs cobbler

Cobblers have a biscuit-like batter that makes the dessert a little heavier. Crisps are lighter desserts, with a fruit base and crispy topping.

Cobbler is usually topped with batter or biscuits in lieu of crust. Cobbler's name comes from its sometimes cobbled texture, which is a result of spooning or dropping the topping over the fruit rather than distributing it equally. This way, the filling can peek through.

A brown betty is both layered and topped with sweet butter crumbs. The crumbs should be dry to absorb between the layers while remaining crunchy on top. Breadcrumbs or graham-cracker crumbs are used in this dessert. A buckle is generally made with berries folded in cake batter before baking with some crumb topping.

Both are very similar apple desserts, but the difference mainly comes down to the crumble topping: Instead of the flour and oat mixture used in an apple crisp, an apple brown betty uses breadcrumbs for its crumbly, delicious topping.

Apple Crumble is synonymous with Apple Crisp in the U.K. and Australia, but in Canada and the U.S., it is a slightly different dish. Like an apple crisp, an apple crumble is a baked fruit dessert with a layer of topping. But unlike the crisp, the crumble topping rarely includes oats or nuts.

Both are very similar apple desserts, but the difference mainly comes down to the crumble topping: Instead of the flour and oat mixture used in an apple crisp, an apple brown betty uses breadcrumbs for its crumbly, delicious topping.

A biscuit, pie, or cake-topped fruit dessert that's cooked in a covered Dutch oven or cast-iron skillet on the stove. Grunts are very similar to cobblers, but they are STEAMED instead of BAKED.

Pandowdy: A pandowdy is a deep-dish baked fruit dessert with a flaky pie or biscuit topping. The main difference between a pandowdy and a cobbler is that the topping is rolled out to the shape of the baking dish, placed on top of the fruit mixture and partially baked.

Slumps have a lot in common with another dessert called a grunt. Both include a layer of fruit topped with a biscuit crust and sugar syrup. The difference is that the grunt is steamed on top of the stove while the slump is baked in the oven.