Savor summer peaches
While there’s no wrong way to eat a peach— raw with the juices dripping down our chins is a personal family favorite— summer simply cannot pass without baking peaches into a sweet Southern cobbler.
If you dig into a spoonful of traditional peach cobbler, you’re likely to find the stone fruit slices sans their outer layer. But tender peach peels are difficult to remove with a traditional peeler, and so the tedious task is often done by dunking the peaches into boilingwater and then an ice bath, or with a serrated peeler.
Leaving the peel intact streamlines the steps, and the blush peach skin adds flavor and a rosy hue to the cobbler’s filling.
Some cobblers are latticed with strips of pie dough, but the best topping for a Southern peach cobbler has to be the cream biscuit. Cream biscuits are made with full-fat heavy cream rather than a combination of butter and buttermilk. Stirred together quick bread-style and portioned with an ice cream scoop, this cobbler topping bakes up goldenbrown and tender.
A peach cobbler is all about the fresh fruit— three pounds of ripe peaches, to be exact. The freshly cut fruit may form a mound above the rim of the baking dish, but itwill collapse and concentrate as it bakes. It takes little more than a sprinkle of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract to let the natural sweetness of inseason peaches shine.
Freshly squeezed lemon juice balances the fruit, adding the spark of acidity that makes youwant another spoonful, while cornstarch thickens the natural juices into a luscious, bubbling sauce.