House Spouse

I can’t think of anything more quintessentially Georgian than peach cobbler. So, in a thinly veiled attempted to prolong the feeling that we were still vacationing down South, I made one. I’m not terribly into baked fruits and have little (no) experience baking cobblers. I love to make crisps, but wanted to keep it real. These peaches, after all, were bought directly from an orchard in Peach County. I used a recipe from a cookbook that I reviewed last December when I was still writing and editing for Drive Thru. The book is called A Love Affair with Southern Cooking and the recipe is titled “Country Peach Cobbler.” Perfect.

Unfortunately, between just Andrew and me, we’re having trouble polishing off this thing! We’ve got that strawberry pie (which I’m more drawn to) and being that it’s bathing suit season, I’m trying really hard to be disciplined (although I should have been worrying more about that about three months ago). I’ve rarely had a dessert stick around for more than a day or two, but here we are, four days later…

(recipe after the jump)

Peach Country Cobbler
From A Love Affair with Southern Cooking

Ingredients

Peach Mixture:
3/4 cup sugar
2 T corn starch
6 cups sliced, peeled, and pitted firm-ripe peaches (3 3/4 to 4 pounds) Or, if you’re like me (i.e., lazy) don’t bother peeling them. You get lots of flavor and color from the peels. Just think of the cobbler as more “rustic.”
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 T butter

Topping
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 T sugar
2 T baking powder
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
5 T ice-cold butter, diced
3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400 F.

For the peach mixture, combine the sugar and cornstarch in a large non reactive pan, pressing out all lumps. Mix in the peaches, lemon juice, and butter, and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook and stir for 1 minute, then set off the heat.

For the topping, combine the flour sugar, baking powder, lemon zest, salt, and nutmeg in a food processor*, pulsing a few times. Sprinkle the butter over the top and pulse a few more times until the mixture looks like course sand. Drizzle the milk over the top and pulse again, just until a soft dough forms.

Scoop the peach mixture into an un-greased shallow 2 1/2-quart casserole, spreading to the edge. Drop the topping by tablespoons on top, spacing evenly. Bake on the middle oven shelf until bubbly and golden brown, 30 to 45 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature with whipped cream (good) or vanilla ice cream (really really good).

*Did I mention I have a food processor now! My parents gave it to us (me) for our anniversary!

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