By Elizabeth Wilkerson -- Daily Staff Writer

Whatever the form, be it cobbler, crumble or crisp, summer is the perfect time to enjoy a variety of baked fruit desserts.

Any kind of fruit, including apples, cherries, blueberries, blackberries and, of course, peaches, will do for a cobbler, said Helen Knight. Knight, who works at Strasburg's Hi-Neighbor Restaurant, has been baking for 50 years.

"It's a down country dessert," she said.

Shenandoah County resident Wanda Shoemaker has taught pie-making, and has been baking for more than 50 years. She made her first pie — lemon — at age 8, she said, "and then, cobblers, they just go right along with that."

Her explanation for the dessert's appeal was simple.

"It's delicious," she said.

Though a variety of baked fruit desserts are called "cobblers," there are some distinct differences between true cobblers and crumbles or crisps.

Technically, a cobbler is "a deep-dish fruit pie with no bottom crust and a thick top crust of biscuit dough," according to Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary. The dish originated in North America, according to Practically Edible, an online food encyclopedia, and savory fillings are sometimes used to make it a main course instead of a dessert.

"Settlers didn't always have the time, or the appropriate kitchen space, to roll out pie crusts," the site says. "Sometimes they didn't have ovens to cook them in."

A biscuit crust, though, could be mixed in bowl, pressed into a pot to line it, filled with fruit and cooked by hanging the pot over the fire, it says. Eventually, a variation in which the crust was only on top emerged and this version is more common today.

"If you are looking for the difference between a crumble and a cobbler, the topping in a crumble is kind of a 'shortbread' one," it says, "with butter and sugar rubbed into flour, whereas a cobbler is more of a 'biscuit' topping." Crisp is another term for crumble, according to the online cooking source.

For most cobblers or crisps, fruit is the foundation of the filling. In summer, Shoemaker either picks her own berries or buys them from local farmers markets, but Knight said canned fruit also works well. Both bakers agreed that fresh fruit must be ripe.

"If you pick the fruit and it's not quite ripe, then you're going to have to wait until it ripens," Shoemaker said. "I go ahead and try to pick the ripest off to use."

Though ripe fruit is best, take care not to overcook it, Shoemaker said.

"You don't want the fruit to go to mush," she said. The fruit will cook on the stove as well as in the oven, she said, so cook it on the stove only as long as directed. Also, remember that softer apples will cook faster than firmer apples, she said.

"You want it to hold its texture and firmness," she said.

But, the traditional biscuit-like topping is not the only crust option, she said — some people like a crumbly topping or a pastry crust. Knight said she prefers the crumbly topping to the traditional pie- or biscuit-like crust.

"To me, it looks better and it's more appealing," she said. "It's something like a Brown Betty, you know."

Shoemaker said she likes a pie pastry crust, but topping preferences are sometimes regional.

"My husband likes where you take the crust and layer it in the fruit," she said, a practice more common further down south in Georgia and Florida.

If you're making a pastry-like crust, she said, keep all your ingredients as cold as possible and don't overwork the dough. Flour contains gluten, a protein that, when combined with water, makes dough elastic, but can make the pastry tough if overworked.

"The secret is not overworking the dough if you want a nice, crisp crust," she said. "You don't want it tough. You want it nice and flaky and crispy."

But, she said, baking isn't about achieving perfection, so don't be afraid to learn by doing.

"It's [about] having fun with it and tasting and sharing with family and friends," she said.