What To Do With All That Extra Fruit: An Easy and Delicious Fruit Cobbler for Toddlers
Nobody ever tells you about the blueberries.
Sure, you’ll hear an earful–and well before you’re even a parent–from family and friends with kids about sleep deprivation; you’ll be warned and then ribbed endlessly about the terrible two’s (and three’s). But when it comes to warnings and prognostications about the early years of parenting, you’ll never hear about all those berries, the endless schlepping for berries: pints and pints a week for years. Your child will basically be comprised of them.
All of which is to say: you probably have a few–or a lot–on you right now. Or peaches. Or Apples. Or plums. Doesn’t matter. When that moment comes when you have too much fruit and not enough time, there’s this (kinda literal) lifesaver: a no-sugar cobbler that makes good use of surplus fruit but asks little of your time and energy. It works with any fruit; it fits it into any meal. Childhood in a bowl.
- 1 pint Blueberries (see Notes section for proportions for other fruit)
- 1/2 TBSP All-purpose Flour (+ additional 1 TSP)
- Honey or maple syrup
- 1 cup Flour
- 2 TSP Baking powder
- Cinnamon
- 5 TBSP Butter
- 2/3 cup Milk
- Yogurt (for topping)
- Place the butter in the freezer at least one hour before using (but feel free to put a stick in there at any point for future use).
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- If using berries, wash and dry; if using stone or seeded fruit, peel off skin and then chop fruit into small pieces; discard core and any seeds. Place in an 8x11 baking pan or an 8” pie pan.
- Sprinkle the 1TBSP + 1TSP of flour all over the blueberries, then drizzle honey or maple syrup; toss and mix the berries, then spread berries all across the pan to ensure even coverage.
- In a separate bowl, mix the one cup of flour, baking powder, a generous shake of cinnamon, and a small shake of salt until melded. Using a grater, shred the butter over the top of the flour mixture, such that small shards of butter fall into the bowl. (You can also use a knife to cut the butter into smaller pieces, but we find the grater an easier way to achieve this.) Pour in the milk, then mix ingredients until they solidify into a dough; if parts of the bowl remain dry or crumbly, add in a bit more milk until it coheres.
- Grab a clump of dough with one hand, then use the other to press and pat the dough down flat; drape this piece of dough over the top of a portion of the fruit in your pan. Repeat the process until dough covers the entirety of the pan.
- Bake until the dough is golden brown all teh way through and the fruit is bubbling up from under, roughly 35-40 minutes.
- Allow to cool 5 before serving.
With a little yogurt–or ice cream!--on top, a chunk of the cobbler should be soft and supple enough for your toddler to spoon and eat on his/her own. To make more mobile, chill for 30-60 minutes after cooking, then cut into squares or bars.
If using larger berries--say blackberries or raspberries--you may need roughly 1.5 pints of fruit to fill the bottom of the pan; if using seeded or stone fruit (i.e., apples, nectarines), you'll need about 4-6 small ones or 3-4 large ones.
Brad (the Dad) is the founder and Chief Recipe Officer of New Dad's Kitchen. His own cooking/feeding journey started humbly during his son's infancy, preparing and managing his son's bottle intake in order to support his wife; it has since blossomed into a full-on passion to feed his child and family delicious and healthy meals that can satisfy both a toddler and his very tired parents.
