Author Notes
When it comes to baked fruit desserts, the names can get a little silly and very confusing: Crumbles, buckles, grunts, slumps, and brown Bettys -- they're all different, but only very slightly. By most definitions, a cobbler is a baked fruit filling topped with biscuit dumplings, but every version I ever had growing up was topped with a piecrust, either latticed or whole. Peaches are classic, but you can use virtually any fruit in this cobbler and the dessert will come out spectacularly. Whenever I make pie dough, I freeze any leftover scraps to reuse as my cobbler topping. The scraps' jagged texture creates a perfect crunchy contrast to the bubbly fruit filling. My thrifty Southern grandparents would be so proud. —Ben Mims
Ingredients
-
1 cup
sugar, plus more for sprinkling on top
-
1/4 cup
cornstarch
-
1 tablespoon
fresh lemon juice
-
1 tablespoon
Bourbon
-
2 teaspoons
vanilla extract
-
1 teaspoon
kosher salt
-
1/2 teaspoon
ground cinnamon
-
1/4 teaspoon
freshly grated nutmeg
-
4 pounds
peeled and pitted peaches, thawed if frozen, chopped or thinly sliced
-
Single batch (1 disk) pastry dough, rolled out 1/4-inch thick and cut into strips 1 1/2-inches wide, then frozen; or 1 pound frozen leftover scraps of pastry dough
-
1/4 cup
(1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into cubes
-
Vanilla soft serve (or ice cream)
Directions
-
Heat the oven to 375°F.
-
In a large bowl, whisk together the 1 cup of sugar and the cornstarch, then add the lemon juice, Bourbon, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg and stir until evenly combined. Add the peaches and toss until evenly coated in the spiced sugar. Transfer to a 3-quart baking dish and spread evenly in the bottom.
-
Break the frozen strips of pastry into jagged pieces and distribute them evenly over the peaches. Top with the cubes of butter, then sprinkle liberally with more sugar. Bake until the peaches are bubbling in the center and the pastry is deep golden brown, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving with large scoops of soft-serve.
Ben Mims is the author of three cookbooks: Air Fry Every Day: 75 Recipes to Fry, Roast, and Bake Using Your Air Fryer (Clarkson Potter, 2018), Coconut (Short Stacks Editions, 2017), and Sweet and Southern: Classic Desserts with a Twist (Rizzoli; 2014).
See what other Food52ers are saying.