Peach cobbler
A dessert of the American South, where Georgia calls itself the peach state. The name probably comes from the mounds of dough, which sit on the fruit like cobblestones on a street. Unlike a crumble there is no streusel but a soft, buttery biscuit dough that soaks up juice underneath and crisps on top. The key is leaving gaps between the mounds — steam escapes through them; without them the underside stays raw.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Peaches 20 min
- Dough 10 min
- Baking 35 min
- Resting 15 min
Step by step
0 / 8 donePeel and slice the peaches
Scald the peaches 30 seconds in boiling water, plunge into cold water and slip off the skins. Cut into thick wedges. Baked skins curl into tough tubes and spoil the texture of a soft filling.
Ingredients: 1200 g peaches · 100 g brown sugar · 2 tbsp cornflour · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp cinnamon · 1 pinch nutmeg · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Toss the fruit with starch and sugar
Toss the peaches with the sugar, cornflour, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla and leave 10 minutes. The fruit releases juice, and the starch sets it in the oven into thick syrup instead of a watery pool.
Ingredients: 1200 g peaches · 100 g brown sugar · 2 tbsp cornflour · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp cinnamon · 1 pinch nutmeg · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Ten minutes — the juice runs, the starch binds it.Put the fruit in a cast-iron pan
Tip the peaches and juice into a 26 cm cast-iron skillet or baking dish and put it in an oven heated to 190°C for 10 minutes while you make the dough. Hot fruit starts baking the dough from below at once.
Ingredients: 1200 g peaches · 100 g brown sugar · 2 tbsp cornflour · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp cinnamon · 1 pinch nutmeg · 1 tsp vanilla extract
Rub cold butter into the flour
Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt, add the diced butter and rub with your fingers to pea-sized crumbs. Pieces of butter must remain visible — melting in the oven, they create layers.
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 110 g butter · 180 ml buttermilk · 50 g sugar · 2 tsp baking powder · ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda · ½ tsp salt
Add the buttermilk and mix briefly
Pour in the cold buttermilk and mix with a fork only until combined into a shaggy, lumpy mass. Do not knead — overworked biscuit dough turns tough and flat instead of fluffy and tender.
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 110 g butter · 180 ml buttermilk · 50 g sugar · 2 tsp baking powder · ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda · ½ tsp salt
Shaggy and lumpy — overworked it turns tough.Drop mounds with gaps
Take out the pan and drop spoonfuls of dough over the hot fruit, leaving gaps. Steam escapes through the gaps and the fruit bubbles up. Dough laid edge to edge stays raw underneath.
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour · 110 g butter · 180 ml buttermilk · 50 g sugar · 2 tsp baking powder · ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda · ½ tsp salt
Mounds with gaps — the steam escapes through them.Sprinkle with sugar and bake
Sprinkle the dough with coarse sugar and bake 30–35 minutes at 190°C, until the mounds are golden and the juice bubbles thickly at the edges. A skewer into the dough should come out dry.
Ingredients: 2 tbsp coarse sugar · 8 pcs vanilla ice cream
Rest a quarter hour and serve with ice cream
Rest 15 minutes — the syrup thickens instead of flooding the plate. Serve warm straight from the pan with a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting into the hot peaches.
Ingredients: 2 tbsp coarse sugar · 8 pcs vanilla ice cream
Before you start
Frozen and tinned peaches
Out of season frozen peaches work perfectly — do not thaw them, just add an extra spoon of cornflour. Drain tinned peaches well and halve the sugar, as they are already sweetened.
Cobbler, crumble, crisp
A cobbler has mounds of biscuit dough on top, a crumble a flour-and-butter streusel, a crisp a streusel with oats. All three are baked fruit, but the texture on top is entirely different.
Best the same day
Cobbler is best warm on the day it is baked. The next day the topping soaks up juice; reheat 15 minutes at 180°C under foil, uncovering for the last 5.
