Brown Sugar Peach Cobbler

notesfromtheparsonage — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:18:55 +0000

Living in Georgia, there is one thing we have plenty of- peaches! Well, to be fair– we have quite a lot of a few things- peanuts, pecans, Vidalia onions, apples… but yes, we’re known for peaches. Peach season comes and you end up with more peaches that you know what to do with. Mostly because you cannot possibly pass up fresh peaches and partially because they’re everywhere The smell alone just makes a basket pop into your possession every time you pass them!

Of course, when they are firm and pretty, you eat them like an apple. You just slice them and eat them plain. No joke, the kids and I saw a video not long ago and this grown man said he’d never eaten a peach in his life! Like– what? And how?

When they get ripe toward over-ripe, you can’t just let them go bad! So, you can jar them (I make spiced peach jam every year at the request of one of my sons), jelly them, or bake them. Here is my (fairly famous) brown sugar peach cobbler using fresh peaches instead of the traditional canned version.

Ingredients for Peach Cobbler:

1 stick of butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1 t baking powder
0.5 t salt
1 cup milk
3 T brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract (or Fiori di Sicilia)(or bourbon)
3 ripe peaches (You can really cook them anywhere from off the tree to overly ripe. It’ll come out fine either way.)

A Note About Vanilla

Vanilla extract is one of the most over-hyped things in the world. You can make your own by soaking vanilla beans in any type of alcohol (personally, bourbon or rum makes the best vanilla extract). You can also just use bourbon or rum sans vanilla. It is cheaper, easier, and available in vast quantities. Once you commit to ditching that tiny vanilla extract bottle– you won’t go back. (And for those who don’t “cook with alcohol”– what exactly do you think an extract is?)

Prepping the Peach Cobbler

You’ll need an 9 x 9 (or 8″) baking dish. Place the whole stick of butter in your dish and put in the oven at 350. While you are whipping everything up, the butter will be melting in the oven. Don’t just melt the butter! The dish needs to be hot. The butter needs to be melted. Two birds– one stone.

Cut up your peaches. Remove the pits. I leave the skin on, but you can remove it if you’re feeling fussy. In a bowl, mix 3 T brown sugar with the peaches. Add 1 t of vanilla extract. Set this bowl to the side.

Now, grab another bowl. Add 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of granulated sugar, 1 t baking powder, and half a t of salt and whisk that up. Add 1 cup of milk and whisk it up, too. Your batter will be on the thin side. If it seems thick, add a bit more milk.

Do Not Mix a Peach Cobbler!

By now, your butter is all nice and melted. Carefully remove it from the oven. Now, you’ll need to carefully add to the butter because it’ll burn like a devil if you happen to splash. Add the batter to the center of the butter first. Don’t mix it. (See the picture above.) Just pour the batter into the center of the melted butter. Resist the urge to mix!

Pour the peaches into the very center of the batter. Do not mix it up. Resist the urge! The batter will bake up around the peaches and the butter will brown up on the outside all nice and pretty. You mix it, you’ll mess it all up. Please don’t mix.

Baking a Peach Cobbler

On the the baking! Finally, we will bake the peach cobbler at 350 (Fahrenheit- I’m American) for what seems like far too long (about 45 minutes) until it is pretty and golden on the top and doesn’t slosh around when you move it. Believe me, everyone in your house will be begging you to just let them at it, make them all wait. You may have to stand guard at the oven door.

Once it is pretty and brown (or you can fend the hoards off no longer), remove it from the oven. Let it cool! You don’t have to let it cool ALL the way down, you just don’t want to be eating molten lava peach cobbler. You won’t be able to appreciate it with your mouth burned to heck and back.

Serve the Peach Cobbler

To serve, serve warm. You can add a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream if you’re feeling super fancy or just happen to like your cobbler a’ la mode. If you prefer, you can add homemade whipped cream. Most people do expect vanilla ice cream with their peach cobbler.

I’d say this serves 6, but more realistically, it serves 4. If 4 of the 6 are kids, yes, it serves 6. Typically, expect to only feed four adults. (Unless they are the bougie type who aren’t going to gorge themselves on peach cobbler in the presence of others.)

Don’t double the recipe. If you need more, you’ll need to bake 2. When doubled, it just doesn’t come out so nice and pretty if you try to put it in a bigger pan. I’ve tried. Once, I baked 6 cobblers in one night because you really can’t double the recipe and do it justice. The peaches don’t spread as evenly when you double and the middle stays a little more runny.

Adapting to Canned Peaches

Now, if you aren’t in peach country and have tons of fresh peaches around for you to use, you can use canned peaches. I grew up on canned peach cobbler. I make canned peach cobbler in the off season. It isn’t quite as good, but still more delicious than anything your mother-in-law ever cooked. Instead of mixing the peaches and brown sugar and vanilla, you just make sure you buy a can of peaches in heavy syrup and pour the whole can into the center of the cobbler.

You can also use other fruit. Blackberries make a lovely cobbler, too! Blueberries are great, as well. Blueberry lemon is super fancy and delicious. But the peaches are the traditional, for me, way to go.