Bake

Stone Fruit Cobbler With Sour Cream Biscuit Topping

by:
July 14, 2023
5
1 Ratings
Stone Fruit Cobbler With Sour Cream Biscuit Topping
Photo by Food52
  • Prep time 40 minutes
  • Cook time 40 minutes
  • makes 1 (3-quart) baking dish cobbler
Author Notes

There are so many ways to make a delicious cobbler (not to mention all the other adjacent fruit desserts like crumble, crisp, buckle, pandowdy, and more). To me, a great cobbler is lightly sweetened fruit topped with a tender biscuit topping. But, just like so many of the best baked goods, there are a lot of delicious ways to achieve that end result. Cobbler is beautifully customizable, and truly impossible to mess up. This recipe features a biscuit “crumble” topping that uses less liquid in the biscuit dough that goes on top, giving it a more streusel-like texture after mixing. This allows you to easily sprinkle it all over the fruit for full coverage, but it then bakes up tender and soft, like biscuits would.

Sour cream gives this topping a little tang as well as some lovely richness—a perfect pairing with juicy summer fruit. I like to make this with peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, or even a combination of stone fruits. In season, stone fruits are *very* juicy, and the cobbler may be juicier for it. But that is the true beauty of cobbler: If it’s juicier, just serve it in a bowl—you really can’t mess it up! Either way, add ice cream or whipped cream when you serve it to take it truly over the top.

Note: If you’d like to make this with another summer favorite—berries—instead, reduce the total fruit to 3 pounds (about 1.36 kg), and cut the fruit in halves or quarters if they are large. —Erin Jeanne McDowell

What You'll Need
Watch This Recipe
Stone Fruit Cobbler With Sour Cream Biscuit Topping
Ingredients
  • For the biscuit topping:
  • 2 1/3 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup (106 grams) light brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon (12 grams) baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon (3 grams) fine sea salt
  • 1/2 cup (113 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch/1-cm cubes, divided
  • 2/3 cup (155 grams) cold sour cream
  • 1/4 cup (60 grams) heavy cream
  • 1/2 teaspoon (3 grams) vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) almond extract
  • For the pie filling & assembly:
  • 1/2 cup (99 grams) granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (14 grams) cornstarch
  • 1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) fine sea salt
  • 4 pounds (1.81 kilograms) stone fruit (such as peaches or plums), sliced ¼-inch/6-millimeters thick
  • 1/2 teaspoon (3 grams) vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon (<1 gram) freshly grated nutmeg
  • 2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature, divided
  • 1 (56 grams) large egg
  • 1 tablespoon (15 grams) heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon (21 grams) honey
Directions
  1. For the biscuit topping:
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt to combine. Add the cubed butter, and use your hands or a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour, continuing to mix until the butter is in pieces—the largest size should be no larger than the size of peas.
  3. Add the sour cream, and mix to combine. Add the cream, vanilla, and almond extract, and mix until the mixture forms a streusel-like consistency. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and chill the dough in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
  1. For the pie filling & assembly:
  2. Heat the oven to 375°F/190°C with an oven rack in the center.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, and salt to combine. Add the fruit and toss until well coated. Add the vanilla and nutmeg, and mix to combine.
  4. Use about ½ tablespoon (7 grams) of the butter to generously grease the baking dish. Pour the fruit filling into an even layer in the pan, then dot the remaining butter over the surface of the filling. Sprinkle the biscuit crumble topping over the fruit in an even layer.
  5. In a small bowl, whisk the egg, cream, and honey together to combine. Brush this mixture evenly over the surface of the crumble topping. Transfer the dish to the oven and bake until the filling bubbles around the edges of the biscuits and the biscuits are deeply golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes. (If the biscuit topping is browning too much for your liking, tent the baking dish with foil for the remainder of baking time.)
  6. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving warm.
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Erin Jeanne McDowell
I always have three kinds of hot sauce in my purse. I have a soft spot for making people their favorite dessert, especially if it's wrapped in a pastry crust. My newest cookbook, Savory Baking, came out in Fall of 2022 - is full of recipes to translate a love of baking into recipes for breakfast, dinner, and everything in between!

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1 Review

MQAvatar
MQAvatar August 21, 2023
This is a lovely summer treat and perfect for your large haul of farmers market stone fruit. I much prefer baking a cobbler in the summer since my kitchen is too hot to make pie dough (also I rarely have enough horizontal space in my fridge to chill rolled out pie dough, but somehow had enough room to chill a bowl of biscuit dough).

Erin's Cobbler Crash Course video is an excellent resource, but it's always nice to have a recipe. I made it very nearly as written. The nutmeg and almond extract were very nice aromatic touches. Some of my peaches and nectarines were super ripe, so I cut them into larger slices, worried that they might just dissolve into mush otherwise. I also added a bit more cornstarch, because I didn't want it too juicy.

Just a heads up that if your egg and cream are fridge-cold for step 4 (the final wash before baking), the honey not dissolve and WILL clump. I would suggest either substituting granulated sugar in the egg wash or cutting out the honey, but then sprinkling the egg washed-cobbler with a bit of turbinado sugar.