Pear and Custard Cobbler

A Fruit Cobbler is a baked dessert with a fruit filling and a crunchy and textured topping. The majority of Fruit Cobblers normally come in single fruit varieties and is named after the filling, such as blackberry, blueberry and peach cobbler.

Pear and Custard mix ingredients serve 8

1 tin pear (825g)

500 ml milk

3 tbls caster sugar (50g)

50 g custard powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

Method

Chop pears and place in a baking dish. Pour the juice, 450 ml milk and the sugar in a pot and bring to the boil. Place 50 ml milk, vanilla essence and custard powder in a bowl and combine with a whisk. When the milk mixture is boiling blend the custard mix in and keep stirring until evenly boiled. Pour mixture over the pears and allow cooling in the refrigerator with a piece of food wrap to avoid a thick skin on the custard.

Cobbler topping ingredients

1½ cups self raising flour (235g)

2½ tbls caster sugar (35g)

½ tsp salt (3g)

½ tsp mixed spice

75 g unsalted butter

150 ml cultured buttermilk

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C. Place flour, sugar, salt and mixed spice and combine. Add the butter and use your hands to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs. Add buttermilk and combined to dough. Place dough on a workbench dusted with flour and roll or press out to a thickness of approx 2 cm. Cut with a 3 cm scones cutter and place on top of the cooled pear and custard mix.  Place the finished dish in the oven and bake for approx. 20 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Note: Substitute self raising flour with 225 g plain flour and 10 g baking powder if self raising flour is unavailable.