"Bettys" - Desserts with Unlimited Variation

What is a Betty? Besides being a pretty name, it is a baked fruit dessert layered with crumbled baked goods, like bread or cake crumbs. Bettys have been around a long time. Ida Bailey Allen in Cooking Menus Service from the 1920s wrote how useful they were as a creative way to use up leftovers.

"Bettys" may be made with practically any kind of juicy fruit, either one fruit or a blend. It sometimes happens that one has what might be described as "a little o' this and a little o' that" in the refrigerator, yet not enough of any one thing to make a dessert by itself, so why not put them together? A few good combinations are: blackberry and apple, rhubarb and strawberry, cherry and rhubarb, currant and raspberry, apple and pineapple, plum and rhubarb. Any of these may be used by themselves as may peaches, apricots, or cranberries.

Then, too, "Bettys" may be made with bread crumbs, rusk crumbs, or stale cake crumbs, and they may be prepared in little individual dishes just as well as in one large baking dish.

So, by Allen's simple definition, Bettys are probably the most useful and elegent way to use up and serve any kind of fruit, as leftovers or fresh, singly or in combination, and layered with just about whatever baked goods you have in the bread drawer.

Her recipe for Cherry Betty includes a handful of ingredients, and is adapted below. Look for different varieties of cherries when at the Farmer's Markets when they come into season for a little variety.

Cherry Betty

• 3 cups cherries, stoned and quartered
• 2 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs
• 1 cup sugar
• Grated lemon rind from one lemon
• Fresh squeezed lemon juice from a half a lemon
• 2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Make the topping and set aside: Mix 1/2 cup bread crumbs and the butter and reserve. Preheat oven to 370 degrees.

Mix the lemond rind and lemon juice with the cherries. Put a layer of cherries on the bottom of an oven-safe casserole. Top with a layer of sugar, then a layer of bread crumbs. Repeat using the rest of the ingredients.

Sprinkle the topping mix evenly over the top, cover, and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove the lid, and place back in the oven and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes until browned and bubbly.

Serve warm with homemade vanilla ice cream.

Image by the author, Renee Shelton.

Cobblers: Would the Real Cobbler Stand Up

What is a cobbler? It can be basically defined as a baked fruit dessert with some kind of crust to it. But, while I usually term cobbler with a biscuit crust, others will identify a cobbler with a pastry crust. Looking back through old cookbooks, most have cobblers baked as deep crust fruit pies - baked with two layers of pasty, one on top and another on the bottom.

From The St. Francis Hotel Cook Book

Here are three recipes for cobbler to try from different old books of mine. All versions below show the two-crust style. That is interesting to note as these are pretty good sources for pastry. It makes me wonder if the cobblers we now associate with have evolved into what they are now, rather than being 'authentic' But then again, I'm learning that's the way it is for most recipes. People like the crust on cobblers, so why not expand up on it? For a more modern recipe for cobbler, try the tried-and-true cobbler recipe I use. It's a biscuit-style fruit cobbler.

Paul Richards' Pastry Book by Paul Richards (1907):

Apple Cobbler
Line a deep baking pan with pie paste, and fill with stewed or raw apples, sliced, sweetened and flavored like for apple pie. Cover with a top crust, brush with egg-wash and bake. Serve with cream or wine sauce.

 Desserts by Olive M. Hulse (1912):

Peach Cobbler
Line a deep pie dish with pastry rolled a quarter of an inch thick. Fill with ripe juicy peaches, pared and quartered, adding a few of the stones. Sprinkle generously with sugar. Add two tablespoonfuls of butter cut in bits, and sufficient water to half cover the peaches. Put on top crust, pinch and prick it, and bake until the crust is nicely browned in moderate oven.

The Hotel St. Francis Cook Book by Victor Hirtzler (1919):

Cobblers
Apple, pear, peach or apricot. Line a deep baking pan with pie dough, fill with the chopped fruit desired, sweetened with sugar, and with a little cinnamon added, cover with a sheet of pie crust paste, brush with egg, and bake. Serve with cream or wine sauce.

Rough and Ready Cookies

"Rough and ready" is coined with the culinary term of something quick and easy to put together, or unrefined and uncomplicated. That term goes back a long time, and in A Practical Guide for the Cake and Bread Baker (C. W. Schlumpf, 1884), there are two recipes for them. Both are sugar cookies coated in granulated sugar, and both contain spices. It is interesting to note in the original recipe procedures, both aren't too exact in the preparation. In the second one "Mix after general use...and throw them on granulated sugar". In other words, just basically mix, roll, bake. Rough and ready at its finest.

Rough and Ready, No. 1


1/2 pound sugar
6 ounces lard
1 pint New Orleans molasses
1/2 pint water
1 ounce baking soda
2 3/4 pounds flour
Allspice and clove [to taste]


Mix like any other cake; roll out and cut, with oblong cutter; wash [with egg wash], and through them on granulated sugar; bake in a slow oven.


Rough and Ready, No. 2


2 pounds brown sugar
1 pound lard
1 1/2 pints New Orleans molasses
8 eggs
2 ounces baking soda
1 pint water
1/2 pound cake flour
Cinnamon and allspice [to taste]


Mix after general rule, and use enough flour to make dough; roll out, cut in round shape, wash and through them on granulated sugar, when on pans put a raisin in center; bake in a slow oven.

Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes by Miss Parloa, And Home Made Candy Recipes By Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill

Following suit with a review of The True History of Chocolate on the Pastry Sampler blog, I'd thought I'd talk about Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes for Old School Pastry, a little chocolate cookbook published in 1909 by Miss Parloa. It included Home Made Candy Recipes by Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill.

Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes was more of an advertising manual rather than a cookbook as it was sponsored and created by Walter Baker & Company, a popular chocolate manufacturer back then, and written by a noted foodie of the time, Maria Parloa who was a cooking teacher. Parloa authored ten different cookbooks between the 1870's to the early 1900's. All the recipes were formulated to use that chocolate or to incorporate the brand name in the recipe.

Parloa's chocolate book contains a little essay on chocolate and in it contains a couple of paragraphs of why Baker's chocolate products are the best. She also adds quotes from Baron von Liebig, Brillat-Savarin, and others. In the Recipes part of the book, there are many recipes from drinks to breads, cakes to confections. There is a section by Miss Elizabeth Kevill Burr, who was also a cooking teacher and cookbook author, and one by Miss M. E. Robinson (which also included many recipes by assorted cooks). The Home Made Candies section was dedicated solely to recipes by Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill, who founded the Boston Cooking School Magazine, and authored many cookbooks herself.

Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes contains a good cross section of what was prepared back then for both beverages and foods that were savory and sweet. Color images are included for some of the recipes, and advertising for the different chocolate products is sprinkled throughout.

Book Information:

• Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes by Miss Parloa, and Home Made Candy Recipes by Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill
• Walter Baker & Co., Ltd.; 1909