Pomegranate Apple Cobbler Recipe

Recipe developer Rika Hoffman suggests that her pomegranate apple cobbler is just the thing to switch up your dessert game should you find that, "the heavy and rich desserts of the holiday season grow cloying." As she tells us, "This recipe contains so many contrasts: tangy-creamy, warm-cold, crunchy-soft." The tang, of course, comes from tart apples and pomegranate juice in the filling and pomegranate seeds on top, with the latter helping to make it nice and colorful, too. Hoffman likes to top her cobbler with ice cream or whipped cream as well, saying that either one can help to "mellow out" the tartness of the fruit. She feels that this dessert is not only full of flavor but fun to eat due to all of the different textures, ranging from the soft fruit filling to the tender biscuits and the crunchy sugar on top.

Hoffman characterizes this recipe as something "ideal for large groups and holiday gatherings," but if you'll be eating alone and your appetite is not enormous, you can reduce the recipe to make a half- or quarter-sized cobbler. The reason for this, Hoffman cautions, is that "This cobbler is best served warm on the day it was made." She goes on to explain that "Over time, the biscuits will start soaking up the liquid from the filling," and may thus become soggy, so this is a festive dish to serve warm and enjoy right away.

The biscuits for the cobbler are made from flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, butter, and buttermilk, while for the filling you'll need pomegranate juice, baking apples, and cornstarch. To top it all off, you will also need turbinado or demerara sugar as well as ice cream or whipped cream and a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds to serve.

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients for the biscuit dough: flour, baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and granulated sugar.

Add ½ cup cold, cubed butter and coat it in the flour mixture.

Crush the butter between your fingers (or use a pastry cutter) until the largest piece of butter is roughly the size of a pea.

Mix in a cup of buttermilk and knead gently by hand until the liquid is well-incorporated.

On a floured surface, roll out or pat the biscuit dough into a rectangle that's about a half-inch thick.

Cut into four rectangles and stack them. Roll out the dough to form layers. Repeat again, cutting the dough in half, stacking, and then rolling it out to a half-inch thick.

Cut biscuit dough with a cookie cutter, or drinking glass, or use the base of a pastry tip for extra-tiny biscuits. Chill the biscuits in the fridge until ready to bake.

Preheat the oven to 425 F and grease a 2-quart baking pan with ½ tablespoon butter.

Grease a 2-quart baking pan with ½ tablespoon butter.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, reduce the pomegranate juice to ⅓ cup.

Mix ½ cup granulated sugar, cornstarch, and remaining ½ teaspoon salt in a bowl, and combine with the apples and the sugar-cornstarch-salt mixture in a large pot.

Add reduced pomegranate juice and cook the apples over medium heat for 5 minutes or just until the mixture has reached boiling point and the cornstarch has been activated.

Brush the chilled biscuits with buttermilk.

Put the hot filling in the baking dish, and put cold biscuits on top of the hot apple filling.

Sprinkle the biscuits with turbinado or demerara sugar.

Bake for 40-50 minutes or until the biscuits have cooked through.

Cool for at least 20 minutes before serving with whipped cream or ice cream. Top with pomegranate seeds.

Crisps and cobblers are often mistaken for one another, but despite both being fruit-based desserts that start with the letter c, they do have one significant difference. As Hoffman explains it, "A crisp typically has a streusel/crumb topping, which is crunchy, while a cobbler is topped with biscuit dough." There is no one specific type of biscuit that needs to be used for making cobbler. Hoffman notes that "The biscuits can be a very loose dough, which spreads out over the fruit filling; drop biscuits, which have a craggier and more rustic texture; or firmer biscuits, which are cut out, like in this recipe."

Hoffman tells us that here she's using a small biscuit cutter for shaping, but says that she's only doing so "for the sake of presentation." If you are less concerned with your cobbler's appearance, you may "feel free to make them any size." She also advocates refrigerating the biscuits and then putting them chilled on top of the hot filling right before sticking the cobbler in the oven. The reason for doing so is because "This allows the biscuits to quickly start cooking from underneath and prevents sogginess."

While the biscuits used in this cobbler are made with a cup of buttermilk, don't feel like you need to commit to buying a half gallon of it if you won't be drinking the rest. "As a substitute for buttermilk," Hoffman suggests, "you can use ¾ cup plain yogurt mixed with ¼ cup of milk."

No plain yogurt on hand? That's no problem, either. There are numerous other substitutes for buttermilk that you can try, including sour cream stirred into with water or milk (use that same 3-to-1 ratio Hoffman recommended for yogurt) and buttermilk powder, which is great to have on hand if you do a lot of baking but don't like drinking the stuff. You can also whip up a tried-and-true buttermilk replacement with just 2 ingredients, these being regular milk and lemon juice or distilled white vinegar. The acid curdles the milk and gives it a tangy flavor that mimics buttermilk well enough for baking purposes.