This strawberry cobbler with a splash of sweet marsala wine in the filling makes for a delicious and quick summer dessert. A simple dish with a little taste upgrade. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream!
Or give our Strawberry Galette a try while juicy strawberries are still in season! Both recipes are so easy to make!
As much as I love my chocolate cake, once the summer months are here, I am all about fruit desserts. Unpretentious and non-fussy, they are crazy delicious, especially when served with ice cream for a bit of creaminess.
Fruit Cobbler
There so many ways in which you can use summer fruit in baking. From pies and crisps to cobblers. I love a good berry pie but let’s face it they are fiddly. Summer is not the time to be stuck in the kitchen.
For this reason cobblers are my favourite. Very similar to pies in taste but easier to make and a lot more forgiving in terms of technique.
Cobblers have a humble origin. The legend has it that British settlers started making cobblers instead of their beloved pies due to the shortage of ingredients. So they made do by “cobbling” a few scraps of pastry together and putting them on top of fresh fruit.
Modern fruit cobblers are slightly different but the concept remains. Fresh fruit mixed with a bit of sugar and topped with fluffy biscuits. Simple and delicious.
I make them very often in the summer and vary the fruit depending on what I need to use up. This Italian plum cobbler was a result of too many plums from a farmers market! And this rhubarb cobbler happened because a friend shared her homegrown rhubarb with me.
Recipe Tips and Notes
- Before using strawberries in this recipe, taste them and determine how sweet they are. Depending on that, they will need more or less sugar. The recipe was written for medium sweet strawberries. I love using brown sugar for a richer taste but white sugar is absolutely fine.
- I added a splash of sweet Marsala wine, a fortified Italian wine used in desserts or cooking like the famous Chicken Marsala! If you don’t have a bottle in your cupboard, I wouldn’t go out to buy one. I always do as fortified wine lasts forever and it’s so nice to add to recipes for extra flavour like in this Creamy Mushroom Marsala Sauce. Feel free to omit or substitute with a sweet and fruity liqueur of your choice. Chambord or Creme de Cassis will work great.
- Make sure the butter you use for the biscuits is as cold as the one you would use for a pie crust. Cold butter will be cut into small pieces, then mixed into the dough, which will melt during baking and produce the most incredible texture. ( Yes, I use the word ‘biscuit’ here like an American.)
- Don’t worry if the biscuits are not perfectly shaped. That will not matter after baking.
- Brush the tops with a bit of heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar for a thin crunchy layer.
- You can definitely use other fruit like peaches or blueberries. Or you can combine strawberries and rhubarb together for a classic cobbler!
How to Serve Strawberry Cobbler
Without a doubt the best way to enjoy a cobbler is while it’s still warm. However, you do need to give it good 20-30 minutes to settle after it’s been baked.
This way the juices will thicken and it will be less runny. Letting your cobbler sit after baking will also prevent any nasty burns as that strawberry filling as hot as lava!
I love the contrast of a warm strawberry cobbler and cold vanilla ice cream. But if you have sensitive teeth, serve it with whipping cream. Delicious!
More Strawberry Recipes to Try:
- Strawberry Cheesecake Vatrushka Buns
- Chocolate Strawberry Mousse Cake
- Strawberry Meringue Cheesecake
- Strawberry and Cream Cheese Galette
Strawberry Marsala Cobbler
Ingredients
- 800g/5 cups strawberries
- 100g/1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp cornstarch/corn flour
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tbsp sweet Marsala wine optional
- 120g/1 cup flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 50g/1/4 cup granulated white sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
- 60g/1/4 cup cold butter
- 50g/1/2 cup ground almonds
- 3-4 tbsp milk
- 1 tbsp heavy/double cream
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Hull and slice the strawberries. Combine the brown sugar and cornstarch, then mix with the strawberries. Set aside.
- In a large bowl combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt, then cut in the cold cubed butter with a pastry blender or a fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add ground almonds and milk, then mix just until the dough comes together. Turn it out on a floured surface and shape into a rectangle 1 inch thick. Then cut into 12 square biscuits.
- Turn the prepared strawberries into an 9-inch baking dish or a skillet, sprinkle with the Marsala wine if using. Then top with the biscuits. Brush the biscuits with the heavy/double cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes until the biscuits are golden.
