An addictive mandarin cobbler with a cake-like texture, adjustable sweetness. Can be made using canned mandarins, or fresh mandarins for delightfully light and mildly bittersweet undertones that pair well with coffee.
Equipment | Single burner and oven or just oven |
Difficulty | Easy |
This easy cobbler recipe is a great brunch idea!
There was a mandarin BOGO* at my grocery store and I overloaded! It was the height of mandarin season, so they were already cheap. But then I had to find a way to use them because my husband and I couldn't eat them fast enough. So I decided to adopt them into a simple cobbler. The result is a perfect summer dessert recipe that can be made with either fresh or canned mandarin oranges.
Excellent breakfast dessert because it pairs beautifully with coffee.
When fresh from the oven, this mandarin orange cobbler has a magnificently crunchy sugar crust and gooey center. Making this cobbler recipe with canned mandarin oranges simplifies the process and can make this easy summer dish even faster and easier. This is a perfect recipe for brunch or dessert and is vegan friendly! It also packs and travels well, making it a good idea for picnics or potlucks.
*For my non-American friends, a BOGO is a "Buy One Get One for free" sale.
Cleaning tip.
This cobbler recipe has a habit of sticking to the pan around the edges. If your cake pan doesn't want to come clean, simply soak it in plain water for a few hours. The sugar crust will dissolve in the water and then easily clean out. Don't waste time and effort scrubbing when you can just soak!
Substitutions:
Substitute for vanilla: If you're out of vanilla you can replace it with maple syrup! If you are also out of maple syrup you can use bourbon, being sure not to use a peated whiskey! In this recipe you could also substitute the plain flavored milk for vanilla flavored milk, but be sure it is still unsweetened!
Substitute for mandarins: As stated in the recipe, you can use canned mandarin oranges instead of fresh mandarins. If you can't find either cans or fresh, you can use a can of normal oranges instead, or even a can of peaches, though at that point it is a peach cobbler, not a mandarin or orange cobbler. Peach cobbler is one of the favorite southern brunch or breakfast recipes! Another option would be to use fresh clementines, processed the same way as the fresh mandarins in the recipe. Clementine cobbler would be practically the same thing!
Substitute for cinnamon: You can use a small amount of nutmeg or allspice instead. If you do not have either of those spices you can omit the spice entirely. It will not matter too much if it is missing.
Substitute for baking powder: You can use self-rising flour in place of the regular flour, or you can add 1 tsp of lemon juice and 1/2 tsp of baking soda to the batter when mixing everything together. You must put baking powder or a substitute or the cobbler will not rise.
What type of oil to use? The cobbler recipe calls for neutral flavored oil, meaning canola or sunflower or the like, but if you are an olive oil lover you can use olive oil. Just be aware that the final product will taste a little like olive oil. If you want to try something fun I recommend using walnut oil! It adds a little toasted nut flavor that pairs nicely with the citrusy cobbler.
Adjusting the sweetness: If you are worried about this cobbler being too sweet and you prefer your desserts less sweet you can choose to cut 1/8 cup or even 1/4 cup sugar from the batter. Do not cut any sugar from the pan preparation because the sugar is necessary there.
Pro Tip!
Fresh mandarins can easily make your cobbler bitter: Fresh mandarins have a white veining called "pith". Pith is quite bitter and can easily make your fresh baked cobbler unpalatable. So it is very important to remove as much pith as possible as mentioned in the recipe. Do not skip this thorough cleaning step if you are using fresh mandarins or clementines.
Canned mandarins avoid the bitterness problem altogether: If you are concerned about the bitterness and do not want to spend the time being sure you cleaned off all the pith, you can just make canned mandarin cobbler. The canned mandarins have had all of the pith and skins commercially removed. This way it is also a good canned mandarin recipe that is not a salad! Practically the opposite of salad, actually....
Money Saving Tip |
Under normal circumstances, canned mandarins are much cheaper than fresh. |
Let's Begin:
Gather the ingredients.
If you don't have a burner or fresh mandarins use canned mandarins and jump to prepping the cake pan.
If using fresh mandarins peel and segment them. Be careful to check for seeds by gently squeezing the sections and/or holding them up to a light. Clean as much pith as possible from the sections. The pith is what causes bitterness, so it is important to remove as much as you can. This will take roughly 15-25 minutes depending on how many mandarins are used and how thoroughly they are cleaned. Do not skip this step! Skipping this step will make your freshly baked homemade cobbler bitter and unpalatable.
Heat a sauce pan on medium heat and add the 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup sugar, and mandarin sections. While heating your mandarin sections with the water and sugar, poke the sections with a fork. Stir occasionally and cook until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has just begun to bubble, then remove from heat. About 6-7 minutes. Meanwhile prepare the cake pan and batter.
This is what the cake pan should look like after it has been oiled and sugared. The rest of the oil and sugar go into the batter. You can use a spoon to sprinkle the sugar around on top of the oil. Make the sugar coating as even as you can.
Put all the ingredients for the batter into a mixing bowl by adding the 1 cup flour, 3/4 cup non-dairy milk, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp cinnamon. No need to prepare these ingredients separately, you can just add them straight in and save yourself from having to do extra dishes.
Stir the ingredients together until just mixed, being sure to whisk out any lumps. Stop mixing as soon as everything comes together. If you over-mix the batter the cobbler may become tough. It is very forgiving though, so don't worry about it too much.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Try to pour it into the center of the cake pan to not accidentally wash the sugar off of the edges. Again, it's very forgiving. Use a rubber spatula to get all the batter out of the bowl.
Pour the mandarins and juices over the top of the batter, trying to spread them as evenly as possible. Most of the orange sections will sink into the batter and will become incorporated into the cobbler as it bakes. The juice will float on top until it is baked, where it will then sink in and make a delightfully moist center.
Bake for 40-50 minutes until the cobbler is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow the fresh homemade cobbler to cool somewhat before serving. It will make your house smell absolutely amazing!
Enjoy with friends and loved ones!
What to serve with cobbler recipe?
Growing up we usually had cobbler in the morning, but it can be served as an afternoon snack or dessert too. There are no cobbler rules! This recipe is nice because since it is vegan it can be used as a vegan breakfast recipe or brunch idea, categories for which it can be difficult to find recipes. If you do choose to use this as a breakfast or brunch dish then I recommend serving it with;
Coffee
Mimosas
Screwdrivers
Tea
Breakfast Hash
Breakfast Casseroles
Big scoops of vanilla ice cream!
Although...vanilla ice cream could be served on the side always, regardless of the time of day. Especially in the summer! Fresh mandarin cobbler and cold vanilla ice cream? Talk about a perfect summer dish!
Or, as I mentioned earlier in this post, this recipe packs and travels really well, so it makes a good vegan idea for a potluck or picnic. Vegan potluck recipes are somewhat rare, and sometimes produce things that may be a bit edgy for some folks, but homemade cobbler is hard to resist!
Storage.
This cobbler recipe can be stored on the counter overnight, or in the fridge for 3-4 days. After the first day the sugar crust will lose it's crunchiness, but the cobbler will come free from the pan more easily and the overall texture will also become more similar to cake.
Can I freeze this recipe? Freezing this cobbler is not recommended because the thawed cobbler will become wet and squishy.
Can I reheat it? Yes! You can reheat it in the oven, or you can toast individual slices in a toaster oven (do not put cobbler slices into a two slice toaster, that is a fire hazard!) Personally, I enjoy eating the leftovers cold, straight from the fridge, and usually using a spoon in the cobbler pan rather than cutting a slice, ha!
On southern cobbler styles:
Homemade cobbler is one of those nostalgic recipes that just tastes like home. I remember the wonderful, and very occasional, experience of waking up in the morning to the smell of cobbler in the oven. We didn't get to eat it very often (because although my grandparents weren't too worried about it, my parents were concerned about eating healthily), so smelling it first thing was always exciting because it was a special treat!
There are basically two schools of thought on the appropriate texture for cobbler. Some recipes yield a more cake-like product, and others yield a more piecrust-like product. Personally I have always preferred the ones that are more similar to cake. I think they are much easier to make, since you basically just dump and go, and I think they are a widely liked texture in that practically everyone likes cake.
Not to mention that my mom always made her cobblers in the cake style. Hers were even more cake-like because they used less fruit to batter ratio and did not have the sugar crust. Otherwise, this recipe tastes extremely similar to the cobbler batter my mom made, though she almost always used blueberries for the fruit.
What about you?
Which fruit flavor of homemade cobbler is your favorite? And do you have a favorite summer dish that goes well alongside cobbler? Let us know in the comments!
Did you also grow up eating cobbler? I'm so curious about how many people grew up with what style of cobbler! Please vote in the poll below!
What cobbler consistency did you enjoy in childhood?
0%Piecrust-Style Cobbler
0%Cake-Style Cobber
I wonder if the cobbler consistency is a regional thing? For some reason piecrust-style cobblers sound very Georgia in my brain, but maybe I'm just crazy and conflating peaches and piecrust together. Whatever! They're tasty either way!
Final thoughts.
Although this was originally developed as a fresh mandarin recipe, I think ultimately it is just easier, faster, and cheaper with the canned ones. That said, I will probably still make it with fresh ones when I have the time and accidentally bought too many mandarins again, because something about the fresh mandarin cobbler is just a little more homey. But in all actuality, unless you have the two cobblers side-by-side, who is to know? For a cheaper and easier recipe, shamelessly use the canned mandarins with reckless abandon. However, if you find yourself awash in too many very cheap whole ones that are rapidly ripening, here is a fresh mandarin recipe that can help you use them up before they ruin.
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