Great American Cobbler Peach Crumble Review
Author’s note: I wasn’t paid or compensated in any way for this review, and I have no affiliation with Publix or the Great American Cobbler Company.
So salty, it must be holding a grudge.
This is officially my 100th review on this blog. *raises paper cup of tap water in a toast*
Publix had a BOGO deal on these frozen cobblers, so I tried ’em. Well, I tried one — I still have a blackberry cobbler in my freezer, for later. Here’s the scoop on this Peach Crumble dessert from the Great American Cobbler Company.
The label is what caught my attention (and wooed my gullible wallet): it says “Handcrafted” and “Made with REAL BUTTER” and “Pure CANE SUGAR” and “100% AMERICAN GROWN FRUIT.” The back of the box features a wholesome family photo on their rustic looking farm.
What’s not to love about any of this? Take my money.
Here’s what the product looked like inside. The cobbler is frozen in a black cardboard tray. They’re small-ish trays, but deep. You just peel off the plastic film, and bake. I put mine on a cookie sheet (lined with parchment, in the event of any peachy volcanic boo-boos) and baked at 350 for slightly more than an hour.
I should have planned ahead, because I ended up baking this cobbler during a major heatwave, and my air conditioning system was extremely unhappy by my choice. Sometimes the stomach wins out over the brain. You know.
I’d say you are getting six modest servings from this tray. If your family is larger than six, someone will probably cry. If you wanted seconds, you will cry about that, too. In my family, someone always cries anyway, so no big deal.
What does it taste like?
Anyway. The cobbler developed a nicely browned, crispy, sugary crust. Nothing bubbled over or leaked out. The innards were extremely molten, so I let it cool for more than 20 minutes before serving.
Despite the crusty top, the insides were gooey and lush, just the way cobbler should be. I like the texture of the cobbler itself — it’s got the wonderful, scoopable softness and increasingly moist doughy-ness as you eat your way down.
Wondering what defines a “cobbler”? Here’s an article from Serious Eats that explains the difference between a Cobbler, Crisp, and Crumble. Technically, this one is topped with “crumble,” but the batter underneath is “cobbler.” Whatever.
(Full disclosure: I come from an enormous mid-western family who are awesome cooks [and also farmers]. I’ve been spoiled by perfect cobblers most of my life).
The Peach Filling
However, I’m just going to say it: the finished cobbler doesn’t exactly look like the product pictures. The peaches don’t, anyway. There’s not a ton of fruit in proportion to the dough and crumble. I find this interesting, because the first ingredient on the label is “peaches.”
The product picture shows big, juicy, thick peach slices — but the actual result is rather small, squashy fragments of what I’m guessing are canned peaches. I mean, they look canned. They taste canned. Maybe I’m wrong. I would really like to be wrong.
Here’s a nice bite on a spoon. I intentionally scooped a big-ish piece of peach, so it would look pretty. Even my carefully selected photo-op peach-piece is not very big, though. If peach size doesn’t matter to you, then you may not care.
There’s a generous amount of clear syrupy goo stuff surrounding the peaches — which is not peaches, but is also not cobbler material. It’s similar to the liquid you’d find around peaches in a can. I liked this goo fine, I just wished there were more peaches to go with it.
The Flavors
Flavor-wise, there isn’t any spice taste or additional flavors besides the peaches and prominent “butter” flavor (more about where that butter taste comes from later). On a sweetness scale of 1-10, this is perhaps an 8. It’s fairly sweet.
But, more importantly, this cobbler is bizarrely salty. As I’ve written in a few other posts, I LOVE salt. I dump obscene amounts of salt on my already salty food. Sometimes I sprinkle salt into my palm and lick it up. I have a medical condition called Dysautonomia, which requires massive amounts of salt (and fluids) as treatment. I rarely find any food that is TOO salty.
But, this cobbler was too salty. I hate to say it, but it was. Just too dang salty for a dessert! Even worse, it had weird pockets of extreme saltiness that just came out of nowhere and sucker-punched my tastebuds. Rude!
So. Much. Salt. I thought it might be an unfortunate fluke, until I looked at the Nutrition Facts. More about that later.
Serve it with Brown Sugar Whipped Cream
I served my warm cobbler with homemade brown sugar whipped cream. There are few things in the world better than this whipped cream. You should try it.
To make it, chill a mixing bowl in the refrigerator until cold. Pour 1-2 cups cold heavy whipping cream into the bowl. Add a small amount of dark brown sugar (anywhere between 2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup) and a pinch of salt. Beat until stiff peaks form. Done.
You can throw in a splash of almond or vanilla extract (or rum) if you want, but the brown sugar flavor is plenty delicious by itself.
Baking Instructions for Great American Cobbler
The baking instructions from the box offer only one way to prepare this cobbler: conventional oven. The tray is small enough to fit inside my countertop air fryer toaster oven, but for science-sake, I obediently cooked it as directed in my “big oven.”
Mine needed slightly more than an hour at 350 degrees to look gently browned. And I opted to line my cookie sheet with parchment instead of the prescribed aluminum foil.
Nutrition Facts in Great American Cobbler Peach Crumble
According to the package, there are 8 servings. These would be rather small servings, unlikely to satisfy most American stomachs. I divided my cobbler into 6 servings, and they were still smallish. Don’t worry — I compensated with that mountain of whipped cream.
Anyway. A ~4 ounce serving has 260 calories, 7 grams of fat, 2 grams of protein, and 30 grams of sugar. There are 47 total grams of carbohydrates, and 1 gram of fiber.
A serving also has 17% of your daily value of sodium. To put this in perspective, a serving of potato chips only has 7% of your daily sodium. This is a VERY salty cobbler!
Ingredients in Great American Cobbler Peach Crumble
Here are the ingredients from the label:
- Peaches
- Sugar
- Enriched Wheat Flour (Wheat flour, Niacin, Reduced iron, Thiamin mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic acid)
- Water
- Butter (Sweet cream)
- Margarine (Palm oil, Water, Soybean oil, Salt, Vegetable Mono- and Diglycerides, Soy lecithin, Sodium Benzoate [Preservative], Citric acid, Natural and Artificial flavor, Beta carotene [Color], Vitamin A palmitate, Whey [from Milk])
- Contains 2% or less of: Soybean Oil, Leavening (Sodium acid pyrophosphate, Monocalcium phosphate, Sodium bicarbonate), Wheat Starch, Dextrose, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Cellulose, Xanthan Gum, Corn Starch, Natural and Artificial Flavor
Boo. Margarine. Yuck. Artificial flavor. Preservatives. Double-yuck. Just use butter! You already know we want butter, because you printed it on the front of the box in all caps. Come on!
Extra information from the label:
- Contains a Bio-Engineered Food Ingredient
Price and Shelf-Life for frozen Great American Cobbler
These cobblers were BOGO, but the regular price at Publix was $8.99 for a 2-pound dessert.
Per pound, this is $4.50, which is an ok price. If you actually get 8 servings per cobbler, this is $1.12 per serving.
The “Best By” date on mine is dated approximately 1.5 years after purchase, which is a pretty decent lifespan for a frozen item.
Dramatic Conclusion
This cobbler was tasty with a great texture, but too salty, even for absurdly-salt-loving people like myself. Although it technically contains butter, it also has undesirable margarine and artificial flavors. I wanted more/fresher tasting peaches. For me, this is probably not a product I would buy again. Don’t cook it during a heat wave.
The end.
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