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I have been remiss. I live in the State of Georgia, known as the Peach State,
and I am just now adding a recipe for a Peach Cobbler. My only excuse is that
peaches taste so wonderfully sweet and juicy that most of the time we eat them
just as they are, before I have a chance to bake with them.
A cobbler belongs to the family of old fashioned homespun desserts that
have interesting names like crisps, crumbles, slumps, grunts, brown bettys,
and pandowdys. What they all have in common, besides their funny names, is
their thick bubbling layer of juicy sweet fruit covered with a crust. The
crust does vary by dessert, and for this Peach Cobbler we use a biscuit dough.
The dough
can be either dropped by spoonfuls on top of the fruit, or it can be
rolled and cut into biscuits (done here) before placing on the fruit. Either way, you
end up with beautiful mounds of golden brown biscuits that are crisp on
the outside and soft and flaky on the inside. Some say the biscuits look
like cobblestones, which may be where the name "cobbler" comes from. The
other theory is that "cobbler" comes from the expression "cobble up" which
means to put together in a hurry.
Of course, the peaches
that lie underneath the crust must be of excellent quality, so make this
dessert in the summer, when peaches are in season. There are two types
of peaches, 'Clingstone' and
'Freestone', with many varieties within each classification. The names
(Clingstone and Freestone) refer to how easily the flesh of the peach
separates from its stone. The Clingstone (available in late spring/early
summer), is exactly that, the flesh clings stubbornly to the central
stone or pit. Freestones (available late summer), on the other hand,
have a flesh that is easily separated from the stone. I bring this up
because how the stone is removed depends on the type of peach. For
Freestones, all you need to do is cut the peach in half, and you can
easily pull the stone from the fruit. Simple enough, but the Clingstone
is different as you often have to cut the flesh from around the
stone.
Once the peaches have been peeled and cut
into wedges, they need to be sweetened. Since peaches can vary in
sweetness, use the amount of sugar given in a recipe as a guide. Another
important part of the fruit filling is cornstarch that is needed to
thicken the juices released by the fruit as it bakes. The cornstarch is
what turns the watery fruit juices into a lovely thin clear syrup,
perfect for spooning over the biscuits and fruit.
Now, the final step is to assemble the
cobbler. First place the fruit on the bottom of an oven proof dish and
then evenly place the biscuits on top. Bake the cobbler until the
filling is bubbly and the biscuits are golden brown and a toothpick
inserted in one comes out clean. I like to serve a cobbler warm from the
oven with a dollop of whipping cream, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or
with vanilla custard. Leftovers can be covered and stored in the
refrigerator and then simply reheated the next day.
Other peach recipes you may want to try are
this
Peach Pie,
Peach Galette, or this
Peach Tart.
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