Make summery peach cobbler all year ’round

In Saving Southern Recipes, Southern Kitchen’s Kate Williams explores the deep heritage of Southern cooking through the lens of passeddown, old family recipes.

I grew up in a family of peach snobs. We’d track the season’s progression through the summer, watching the peaches grow bigger, pinker, and cling less to their pits as time slipped by to August.

I’d snack on them out of hand, face over the kitchen sink, catching the drips snaking down my arms. Sometimes I’d peel and slice them, and add the fruit to cereal and yogurt each morning, happy for those bursts of sweetness in every bite. But the best use of peaches was always in “Cuppa, Cuppa, Sticka.”

This batter-based peach cobbler recipe came to my mom from a friend and fellow peach snob, and it was at least a biweekly treat in our house all summer long.

Its cutesy name is basically the recipe: a cup of self-rising flour, a cup of milk, a stick of butter, plus loads of peaches and maybe some blueberries for color. The cobbler bakes up with a sweet, almost custardy center, and goldenbrown, caramelized edges prized by all Cuppa, Cuppa connoisseurs.

I never thought to try to make it before the peach trees blossom, but as it turns out, you can make a fine version of the cobbler all year.

Southern Kitchen reader Liz Daney sent in a recipe for her grandfather’s favorite peach cobbler last fall, and it wasn’t until I started making it this week that I realized it was almost identical to Cuppa, Cuppa, Sticka.

She said that her grandfather loved this cobbler so much that her grandmother would make it “long after the peaches were picked” with their own canned peaches. He would often have this and a glass of cold milk from our milk cows just before he would go to bed.”

Of course, most of us don’t live on a farm and likely don’t can our own peaches. Luckily this cobbler is forgiving. You can absolutely use a large can of peaches straight from the grocery store shelf like I did — just be sure to pick up peaches canned in juice instead of heavy syrup. You could also use frozen and thawed peaches, I’m sure, but the little bit of liquid added from the can creates a lovely sauce in the bottom of the baked cobbler, a cozy contrast of texture to the crisp edges.

Speaking of edges, make sure to get a corner scoop for your first serving. No matter where the peaches come from, it’s still the best part.