Peach Cobbler

This is a Paula Deen Recipe that is absolutely amazing. In our household, we've always made crisps or crumbles. That's all we've ever known. Throw the fruit in the pan and top with some sugar and oats. That sort of thing. The odd time I'd comment that I wanted to make a cobbler and my Mom would whip out so and so's blackberry cobbler recipe. Fruit on the bottom, biscuit like dumplings on the top. Then one day things changed...

I wanted a cobbler. Something different you know. I made a couple attempts at finding a really good cobbler recipe, but nothing really seemed to be out there. A couple of times I combined a couple and came up with my own doughy topping, but it never was what I was looking for.

The whole time this was happening I kept finding these really odd recipes that were calling for a lot of butter to be melted in the bottom of a pan. Batter added next. Followed by fruit on top. How was this supposed to work? I dismissed them every time. To me this just didn't seem possible. How would you get a perfect layer of fruit on the bottom, when you put it on the top?

Finally one recipe convinced me it might be possible (plus logic that heavier things sink helped out), but the recipes all seemed to look like you had fruit on the bottom (dry, ungooey fruit) and a cake (dry again) on the top. Not what I wanted. So again I passed over these recipes.

Until I decided to trust Paula Deen's recipe. Because if she can't make a good cobbler, I don't know who could. And it was magical. Why did every recipe I found fail to mention that the cakieness on the top is anything but dry? As it moves up through the gooey peaches it gets all these amazing flavours. Then once it arrives at the top it has just the right sugar and butter amounts to caramelize and have an almost candy like coating over the top. All the while, the fruit on the bottom is so syrupy and delicious.

Verdict: Delicious. Amazing. So worth it. When can I make it again?

I didn't have enough peaches on hand (or so I thought). I wanted to double this recipe (wasn't necessary, it puffed up A LOT and almost overflowed the dish). So I used half peaches, half rhubarb (also because I had a lot of rhubarb to get rid of). So I just subbed out half of the peaches for rhubarb. Easy peasy. What I didn't expect to happen was for the rhubarb to completely vanish, and the peaches to stay whole. Of all things. If you were to hold a piece of peach and a piece of rhubarb in your hand, it would seem like a no brainer to say that the peach would dissolve and vanish during cooking. It is just so juicy and soft and moist, whereas the rhubarb is so hard. But that is not what happened. So my fruit layer was very much a white gooey syrup with a few peaches throughout. I can't wait to try this with all peaches though. Can't wait.

Ingredients

4 C. Peaches, peeled and sliced

2 C. Sugar, divided

1/2 C. Water

1/2 C. Butter

1 1/2 C. Self Rising Flour  (make own: 1 1/2 C. Flour, 1 Tbsp. Baking Powder, 3/4 Tsp. Salt)

1 1/2 C. Milk

*Optional* Ground cinnamon (for sprinkling)

Directions

~Preheat oven to 350 F

~In a saucepan, combine peaches, 1 C. of the sugar and water and bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Stirring often.

~Meanwhile, place butter in a 9x13 pan and place in oven until melted

~In a large bowl, combine remaining 1 C. sugar, flour and milk. Mix until clumps are gone.

~Pour flour mixture over melted butter (DON'T STIR).

~Place fruit on top (DON'T STIR)

~Pour syrup (from fruit) gently overtop (DON'T STIR)

~Sprinkle with cinnamon (I don't think this is absolutely crucial. Up to you. The topping has so much flavour already.)

~Bake for 30-45 minutes (I can't remember what my exact time was) until top is dark golden and crispy.

Enjoy

Rhubarb Peach Cobbler - Fruit on the Bottom

I had rhubarb, lots of rhubarb. Actually correction, I still have lots of rhubarb. I also had a handful of overripe peaches that were on their way to the garbage, unless I could think of something to do with them. Now, usually my family is more into crisps. You know with the oatmeal crumb topping and such. Well, I wanted to try something different, so I decided I was going to make a cobbler. The only problem, when I went out searching for a recipe, I found that for some strange reason most people like to make peach rhubarb cobblers with fruit on the top. What?? Sorry, but I was not wanting a cake with fruit on top. I wanted something that apparently didn't exist in anyones recipe books. The other option was that if you didn't want a cake, you could do something funky and melt your butter and pour it over the fruit...I don't know, I read at least four different recipes like this and still have no idea what they were getting at. All I knew was that I wanted a topping that you had to cut the butter into (so not a cake).

I finally found a recipe, but unfortunately the dough called for a lot of yogurt and I didn't have anything to substitute for this, so I kept looking. Finally, I had to settle and make the fruit portion from one recipe, and a biscuit topping from somewhere else. Now about these biscuits. They are good, I mean not what I was expecting, or going for, but still good nevertheless. Because I used some whole wheat flour instead of all white, they had a really good grainy taste to them, but they still tasted like a good scone. Plus, they were super easy to throw together. So, while I originally had in mind more of a dumpling like creation, I am very happy with how this turned out.

The original recipe that I used for the fruit portion called for canned peaches. Now that seems a bit silly to me. The whole purpose of making a crisp or cobbler is because you have all this fresh fruit around that needs to be used up (at least that's why I make them.) So why would you be opening a can of fruit? To make it even worse, they say it has to be peaches in syrup, because you need to use the syrup in the recipe. Well, I was having none of that, so I cut up my fresh peaches and decided that I had to find a substitute. I ended up using orange juice instead. But the original recipe never said how much syrup you would use, so I just added a bit at a time and came up with the magic number of 1/2 C.

Biscuit recipe from food.com. Fruit recipe from recipes.com.

Ingredients

Yields: 9 x 13 pan 

Topping:

2 C. Flour (I used 1 C. white and 1 C. whole wheat and it added a nice flavour)

4 Tsp Baking Powder

3 Tbsp. Sugar

1 Pinch of Salt

1/2 C. Butter

2/3 C. Milk

1 Egg

Fruit:

1/2 C. Sugar

2 Tbsp. Cornstarch

3/4 Tsp. Cinnamon

1/8 Tsp. Salt

3 1/2 C. Peaches

3 1/2 C. Rhubarb

1/2 C. Orange Juice (+ 1/8 C. additional if required)

1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla

Directions

Topping:

~Mix together the dry ingredients.

~Cut in the butter until mixture is crumbly.

~In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and milk and pour into butter mixture.

~Stir until just combined.

~Set aside.

Fruit:

~Clean rhubarb and cut into bite size slices.

~Slice peaches into chunks.

~Preheat oven to 350 F

~Place rhubarb, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt and orange juice in a large pot.

~Bring mixture to a boil, stirring continuously as to prevent it from burning. If it looks too dry, add the additional 1/8 C. of OJ.

~When rhubarb has softened and mixture has thickened, add peaches and vanilla. Stir.

~Pour mixture into an un-greased 9 x 13 pan.

~Place pan in oven and heat for 5 minutes.

~Remove dish from oven and place dollops of dough on top of fruit.

~Return dish to oven and bake until biscuits begin to brown and fruit is bubbling. Approximately 12-15 minutes.

Enjoy