I love easy desserts that incorporate seasonal fruit. Cobblers and crisps with fresh fruit, a crispy topping, and obviously served alongside a scoop of ice cream. They are a beautiful thing. You can throw them together quite easily, and they’re great for sharing with friends. You’ll also wow them. This vegan plum rye biscuit cobbler incorporates one of my favorite summer fruits: plums. Added into the plum is a dash of cardamom to bring a warm flavor. To make this somehow even better, it is topped with rye biscuits that have a crunchy sugar coating.
Rye Biscuits
These rye biscuits are an adaption of my flaky vegan biscuits. They still are flaky but are a bit sweeter, with the sugar in the dough, and then the additional sugar on top. The sugar on top provides a nice little crunch, similar to one you would find on most fruit pie crusts. So if you haven’t made my vegan biscuits before (I suggest you do, they’re delicious and easy!), I do mention in the rye biscuit recipe below a stacking method to get flakiness. You can view the vegan biscuit recipe for a thorough walkthrough and pictures!
I wanted these biscuits to be a bit different from my previous ones, so I used rye flour in it. Rye flour gives this biscuit a malty, slightly nutty flavor. It’s quite wonderful in this vegan plum rye biscuit cobbler. If you can’t find rye flour in your grocery store, you can buy it online. This is the brand I always purchase. But most stores will have it with their other flours. If you do not want to use or purchase rye flour, you can just replace the amount of rye flour with all purpose flour.
When you’re rolling out your dough for these biscuits, I call for a 1 1/2″ to 2″ inch round cutter. If you do not have one, you can use something like a shot glass, or anything else you might have on hand. And, as always, keep your biscuits cold! If your butter melts, you won’t get layers!
Plum Cobbler
So what is a cobbler? A cobbler, crisp and crumble all fall into the same sort of category. A fruit filling, with some sort of topping. Typically a cobbler has a dough topping. A crisp or crumble usually have flour/butter, with sometimes oat topping that is sprinkled on top. I decided to go cobbler on this recipe, but use biscuits as my dough. Cobblers can use all sorts of fruits, but I really love plums. Plums are a bit on the tarter side so this uses a little more sugar than you normally would in most cobblers. I also added cardamom into this vegan plum rye biscuit cobbler. It gives it a warmth, and delicious extra flavor. If you do not like cardamom you can use cinnamon instead or completely omit!
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Vegan Plum Rye Biscuit Cobbler
- V
- VG
- DF
Nutrition per portion
Ingredients
- Plum Filling
- 4 Large Plums (about 2 lbs, or 4 cups cut)
- ⅔ cup (140g) Granulated Sugar
- 3 tbsp (26g) Tapioca Starch
- 1 tbsp (14g) Lemon Juice
- 1 tsp (2g) Cardamom
- 1 tsp (4g) Vanilla Extract
- ½ tsp (3g) Kosher Salt
- Rye Biscuits
- ¾ cup (175g) Oat Milk, or Any Other Non-Dairy Milk
- 1 tbsp (10g) White Vinegar
- 1 ½ cups (211g) All Purpose Flour
- ½ cup (70g) Rye Flour
- ¼ cup (50g) Granulated Sugar
- 2 tsp (7g) Baking Powder
- 1 tsp (4g) Kosher Salt
- ½ cup (113g) 1 Stick Vegan Butter
- Melted Vegan Butter for Topping
- Raw Sugar for Topping (about 2-3 tbsp)
Method
Make the Filling- Slice your plums pole to pole, in half and remove the pit and stem. Then cut each half, in half again, this time the opposite way. Then cut each piece of plum into 1/3" inch chunks. You should end up with about 4 cups of cut plum.
- Place the plums, sugar, tapioca starch, lemon juice, cardamom, vanilla extract and salt into a large bowl and toss to coat. Set aside to let the juice draw out while you prepare your biscuits.
- Preheat the oven to 375°.
- In a liquid measuring cup, measure out the milk, then add the vinegar and stir. Let sit for at least 5 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, add both flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. Whisk together to combine.
- Cube the butter, then add to the bowl with the flour. Coat each cube of butter in the flour, then take each piece of butter and smoosh between your index finger and thumb to flatten. Set aside each piece in the bowl, trying to work quickly so the butter doesn’t melt. If the butter becomes too warm it will get worked into the dough and you will not achieve the flakiness desired, this is especially true with vegan butter as it melts quicker. Once all the pieces of butter have been flattened, go through and break up any of the larger pieces. Alternatively if you didn’t want to do this by hand, you could do this in a food processor, just pulsing until the butter is about the size of large peas. At this point if the butter is getting melty, place the bowl in the freezer for ten minutes to get the butter to firm up again.
- Add the milk vinegar mixture to the bowl, and lightly toss with a spoon or your hands until the milk is dispersed evenly throughout the flour. It should be a shaggy dough.
- On a lightly floured surface, dump the dough out and pat into a square using a bench scraper or your hands. Cut the square into quarters with a knife or bench scraper, and then stack each quarter on top of each other, sandwiching any loose dry bits between the layers. Then press the stacked dough down, and shape into a square again. Repeat this step 3-4 times until the dough holds together. This shaping and stacking not only helps the dough to become more cohesive but also helps create layers.
- Re-apply flour as needed to the work surface so your dough doesn't stick. Roll out the dough until about 1/2" thick. Using a round cutter about 1 1/2"-2" wide, cut each biscuit out and set aside on a parchment lined baking sheet. I ended up needing 15 2" biscuits to top my dish, but you need may need more. So re-roll scraps and cut as necessary. Place the baking sheet of biscuits in the freezer while you prep everything else to assemble (Minimum of 10 minutes in the freezer please!).
- In a 2 quart baking dish, place your plum filling in with all the juices, and pack down to get an even layer.
- Top the plums with your biscuits, squeezing them in if necessary.
- Brush all the biscuits with melted butter, and then sprinkle with raw sugar. Don't skimp!
- Place the baking dish on a baking sheet, just to catch anything that might bubble over.
- Bake for 20 minutes, and then reduce the temperate to 350°. Continue to bake for another 40-50 minutes, until the tops of the biscuits are browned, and the filling is bubbling.
- Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before serving.
