French Apple Cobbler

(Sorry about the poor-quality picture - unless it's really sunny outside, there's virtually no light in my house, except my bedroom.)


I'm not sure where this recipe came from - my Mom's friend Bernadette, maybe. Mom's been making it for a quarter of a century.

You need:

Ingredients (topping):

~ 1 cup all-purpose flour (UK users, use plain. Also, a US cup is a little bigger than an English one - about 2/3 of a standard British mug.)
~ 1 cup sugar (I'm an unrefined person, but white works fine, although it's not quite as sweet.)
~ 1 tsp baking powder
~ 1/2 tsp salt
~ 4 tbsp butter
~ 2 eggs

Ingredients (filling):

~ 2 large Bramley apples. (We use Bramleys. Proper French people use dessert apples, since they don't really have sour apples over there. You can use dessert apples, or actually any apples, but use a little less sugar if you're not using cooking apples.)
~ 3/4 cup sugar
~ 2 tbsp flour
~ 1/2 tsp cinnamon
~ 1/4 tsp salt
~ 1 tsp vanilla
~ 1/4 cup water

Equipment:

~ 1 chopping board
~ 1 peeler
~ 2 large bowls
~ 1 small bowl
~ 1 electric mixer OR 1 french whisk and 1 wooden spoon
~ 1 sieve
~ 1 spatula
~ 1 cobbler dish. You can use anything made of ceramic or pyrex - lasagne dishes work well - but it should be about 2 inches deep. You can use deeper if you need, but you have to double the cooking time.

Method:

1 ) Fill your first large bowl with water, and add a couple pinches of salt. (This will pull out any bugs in your apples, and keep them from going too brown.)
2 ) Peel and chop apples into slices. (Thin slices or chunky slices - it's nice either way.) Put the apple slices in the bowl of water.
3 ) Mix all filling ingredients (except apples) in small bowl.
4 ) Add sliced apples and mix around until all slices are coated with filling.
5 ) Beat egg in other large bowl. Add all the other topping ingredients, sifting flour as you add it.
6 ) Lightly grease your cobbler dish. Doesn't need to be as heavy as you'd do for a cake, since you're not expecting it to come out of there in one piece. You can get away with not greasing it if you have a dishwasher.
7 ) Pour apples and filling into cobbler dish. Dot topping around on the top, using the spatula. Don't worry too much if it doesn't cover perfectly.
8 ) Bake at #6-7 for 35-40 minutes.

Makes one large cobbler, which is good eaten hot or cold (although I like it hot), with cream or ice cream or just on its own.