Peach Cobbler

Peach cobbler doesn’t require any special baking skills and showcases the sweet taste of fresh summer peaches.

Heavenly with vanilla ice cream!

Summer is bursting with so many delicious fruits and vegetables that it’s hard to get around to using them all during the season—should I use strawberries, plums, peaches, or raspberries this week? Should I cook green beans, zucchini, peas, or okra, or just make a cucumber salad? (Ok, I’ve done a lot with zucchini—here are my recipes for gluten-free zucchini spice bread and zucchini mint salad.) … And then before you know it, apples and pumpkins are taking over the farmers markets.

So before I forget to take advantage of peach season, let’s make a recipe for gluten-free cobbler. What I love about making cobblers (and crisps) is that they don’t require any special baking skills, so there is very little risk of failure. Even if it doesn’t turn out exactly how you wanted, it’s still going to taste pretty good, especially with a big scoop of ice cream on top.

I like my summer recipes to be simple, so they can showcase the vibrant natural flavors of just-picked fruits and vegetables, and this one is a really simple way to work sweet peaches into a dessert. Cobbler is made in just a few easy steps: mix a basic batter; pour it into a baking dish over melted butter; pour sliced, seasoned peaches over the batter; and pop it into the oven.

The batter is made from gluten-free flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and milk—with a pinch of cinnamon—and the peaches are tossed with sugar and cinnamon. For equipment, you’ll need an 8 x 13 inch baking dish, a large bowl, and a sauce pan. You’ll also need a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream. … Have I mentioned that cobbler is heavenly with ice cream?

Scroll to the bottom for the Cat Update: Days of Rage!

Hot out of the oven!

Ingredients:

For the batter:

1. 1 cup King Arthur Gluten Free Measure-for-Measure Flour (see note¹ on gluten-free baking flour)

2. 2 teaspoons baking powder

3. ½ cup granulated sugar (see note² on sugar amounts in recipes)

4. 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

5. ¾ cup milk

6. 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

   For the peach mixture:

7. 4 or 5 ripe peaches, sliced (about 4 cups when sliced) (see note³ on using canned peaches)

8. ½ cup granulated sugar

9. 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

   In the 8 x 13 inch baking dish:

10. 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small chunks

Gently heat the sliced peaches, just long enough to release some of the juice and melt the sugar.

Instructions:

1. Turn the oven to 350 F (325 F for convection) and place the baking dish containing the butter in the oven to melt

2. Combine the sliced peaches, sugar, and cinnamon in a sauce pan and heat gently, just long enough to release a bit of peach juice and melt the sugar; remove from heat as soon as the liquid in the pan becomes syrupy

3. Blend the dry batter ingredients in a large mixing bowl

4. Add the milk to the bowl and stir just until the batter is smooth

5. When the butter is melted, remove the baking dish from the oven and pour the batter in, distributing it evenly over the bottom

6. Distribute the peach slices evenly over the batter and put the dish in the oven

7. Bake for 1 hour

8. Allow the cobbler to cool before serving, preferably with vanilla ice cream!

Three steps: (1) Make a simple batter.

(2) Pour batter in baking pan over melted butter.

(3) Spread sliced peaches over the batter.

Cat Update: Days of Rage!

Does Seraphina look angry to you? (Other than the fact that she’s preventing me from folding the laundry?)

Seraphina sometimes needs to tell her no-good, lazy parent that she’s not at all happy with the poor service in her house. Especially when her negligent human has been so irresponsible as to leave her in the care of a neighbor for a few days while he’s off galivanting around some other town.

If Seraphina had thumbs and a phone, she’d certainly send me a terse text: “How dare you leave me for days on end without telling me when you’ll be back? I am really, really angry right now! That nice lady gave me a scoop of tuna Tiki Kat food last night, but how do I know if or when she’ll be back? And I am hungry RIGHT NOW!”

Though she doesn’t have thumbs, or a phone, Seraphina does communicate her displeasure perfectly well once I’m back home. I’m sure you’re familiar with litter boxes, which cats somehow all know how to use … or deliberately not use.

So, for a day or two after my return, Seraphina will leave her … ahem … solid waste outside her litter box. I call these her days of rage. I can’t blame her for it, because as I said, it’s not like she has a better way to express her anger, and she leaves her message in plain sight where I can’t miss it. After a couple of outraged missives, she goes back to her normal litter box use, and peace returns to the house.

1. As I’ve mentioned in other gluten-free baking recipes, like my chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies, my go-to baking flour is King Arthur Gluten Free Measure for Measure Flour. I like it because I get good results and because it is less expensive than many other gluten-free blends, like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour, which is a product that many gluten-free bakers recommend, and I’m sure would also work very well. Also, unlike many other gluten-free blends, King Arthur comes in nice big 3-pound bags. (I get no compensation for recommending products.)

2. When testing dessert recipes, I add a lot less granulated sugar than they suggest using, because most are too sweet to my taste. Typically, I cut the recommended sugar amounts by 1/3 to 1/2. So, if you find that my recipes are not sweet enough for your taste, you can certainly bump up the sugar content.

3. I’ve read that you can use canned peaches for this recipe, but I haven’t tried it. If you want to try canned peaches, I’d suggest not adding sugar to them, as the syrup is probably already sweet enough.