Deep Dish Peach Cobbler

Some things in life are not with the time, effort, or calories. Unbalanced cobbler is one of them. Unbalanced as in either too-much-fruit-not-enough-biscuit or too-much-biscuit-not-enough-fruit. I often find that, due to fruit shrinkage when the fruit cooks, the latter occurs by accident. NOT ON MY WATCH, do you hear me?? NOT ON MY WATCH!!! Plus, when there is a lot of fruit you can pretend it cancels out the calories by being healthy and you can eat it for breakfast. :-) Thus, I make a 'deep dish' peach cobbler.

Cobblers are one of my favorite summer desserts. I love them when fruits/berries are fresh and you don't have to use frozen. (You can make very delicious cobbler with frozen fruit, but fresh fruit, in my opinion, always tastes better. That being said-- if you need to save time or the fruit is out of season, frozen is a fantastic alternative.) I've never been big on pie-- possibly the too-much-crust-not-enough-fruit problem that often occurs-- so crisps and cobblers are my favorite fruit based deserts. My recipe started as the one in the Betty Crocker 1969 cookbook featured in my sidebar, but has morphed pretty far from there over the last few years.

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here)
Deep Dish Peach Cobbler

For the fruit:
8 cups peaches, peeled and sliced (about 8-9 medium sized peaches)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 cup sugar
3-4 teaspoons cinnamon (depending on how cinnamon-y you like things)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons cornstarch


For the topping:
2 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
4 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons shortening
1 cup cold milk


Step #1 - Peel and thinly slice peaches.

Step #2 - In a saucepan, mix sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Step #3 - Add peaches and lemon juice to the sugar/cinnamon mixture and heat over medium heat until a thick syrup forms around the peaches. Bring the mixture to a boil and allow to boil for one minute before removing from heat.

Step #4 - Pour cooked peaches into an un-greased 9X9 baking dish.

Step #5- In a bowl, make the topping by blending the flour, baking powder and salt. Add in shortening and milk using a fork or pastry cutter until a sticky dough forms. (I think a fork works best.) The dough will resemble a sticky biscuit dough. (Bonus points if you noticed the photos from here down are in a different kitchen-- I was taking this to a friend's house, so I prepped the fruit at my place and baked it with the topping when I go there so it didn't get soggy.)

Step #6 - Drop the topping on top of the fruit in spoonfuls covering the majority of the fruit. Don't worry about covering all the fruit, it's not necessary and you want the fruit to have room to bubble up, especially around the edges.

Step #7 - Bake at 400*F for 25-30 minutes. Cobbler is done when the topping golden brown and the fruit is bubbling. I suggest putting a cookie sheet or some foil under your cobbler or on the self below, as the fruit often bubbles over the edge and drips. (Please note: mine pictured below could have stood to be just a bit more browned.)

It even passes the very picky eater test! (Trust me! This kiddo is as picky an eater as she is cute. And she is pretty darn cute.)