Get to Know the Buckle, Pie’s Rustic Cousin
Folks, the buckle deserves its due. Don’t know what a buckle is? Exactly.
The buckle is a member of the cobbler family, but coffee cake batter, rather than biscuit or pie crust dough, acts as the base. You mix it with fresh fruit, sprinkle it with a crumbly topping, and bake until golden and oozy.
Sounds pretty good, right? According to “Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More,” once baked, the dessert “has a ‘buckled’ appearance,” hence the name. “Think of a buckle as halfway between a cake and a fruit crisp.”
Recently, several food publications have helped bring the buckle back from relative obscurity, tempting home bakers to make it trendy once again. Luscious recipes feature in-season blueberries, early-autumn apples, and tart huckleberries. And in the video above, “Everyday Food” host Sarah Carey shows us how to make a buckle using fresh summer peaches.
A splash of pure vanilla extract, butter, flour, baking powder, salt, and the sweetest peaches you can find—or pick straight from a tree!—are all one needs for this easy-to-execute treat.
The best part of Carey’s dessert? It has a “high ratio of peach to batter,” she says, making it a “very, very fruit heavy dessert, which is perfect for me.”
Us, too. Bring on the fruit!
