Sunday Dessert: Blackberry Peach Cobbler

I have mixed feelings about Sundays. I’m not scheduled to work weekends, and sometimes that pans out, but much too often, I end up working, for a variety of reasons that never fail to make me grumpy. If I do have the full day off, however, I love to spend it making delicious food. If time and energy allow, that includes dessert as often as possible.

Extra time doesn’t have to mean extra complication, though. This blackberry peach cobbler is relatively simple, somewhat rustic even. The topping involves easy quick-bread techniques and no complicated pastry procedures. I don’t even bother peeling the peaches. (You could if you are fussy.) The fat blackberries and sweet peaches melded together in a dark, jewel-toned, extra-juicy filling that soaked just enough into the slightly tangy buttermilk biscuit topping. Altogether it’s sweet enough to be unmistakably dessert, but the natural tartness of fresh fruit kept it flavorful and satisfying.

Just about any bake-able fruit would be at home under this soft biscuit lid, so I strongly encourage you to use the cobbler vehicle to feature what you like. Peaches and blackberries have strong tradition behind them, and would be just great individually, but other berries, other stone fruits, and rhubarb, alone or in combinations, would also be delicious.

I adapted Grandmama’s Buttermilk Biscuits to make the drop biscuit topping for my cobbler. It’s half a recipe with enough extra buttermilk to make it spoon-able rather than cut-able, and that’s it. I didn’t add any sugar to the topping, and it wasn’t needed. You could brush the top with egg wash or cream and sprinkle it with coarse sugar, though, and that might be pretty fabulous. There’s enough biscuit topping in this recipe to completely cover the fruit when it bakes, so if you like your cobbler more, well, cobbled, you may not want to use all of the dough. (Drop any extra on a baking pan, bake it off, and just eat it!)

  

I can’t remember that I ever made a fruit cobbler before I put this one together. I usually make fruit crisps instead. Unless I have the streusel for a crisp already in the freezer, however, I don’t see any reason why not to switch up to cobbler when sweet seasonal fruit is looking for an appropriate home. 

If there’s something sweet and comforting to help savor a waning Sunday, maybe Monday morning won’t hit so hard. Especially if there’s some leftover dessert to eat for breakfast. I won’t tell if you don’t.

Blackberry Peach Cobbler

Based on recipes in The Joy of Cooking

All 2-quart baking dishes aren’t the same! Make sure you use one that’s wide enough to spread lots of biscuit dough over the top, but deep enough to hold all of your cobbler without bubbling over.

Filling

4 cups blackberries

2 cups chopped peaches

½ cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Biscuit topping

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon fine salt

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup cold butter (1/2 stick)

1 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Prepare a 2-quart baking dish by spraying it with cooking spray or greasing it with butter or oil.

2. In a large bowl, combine the blackberries and peaches. Add the sugar and cornstarch and toss together to combine well. Pour the filling into the prepared baking dish.

3. In a medium-size bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Whisk or sift together to combine well. Cut the butter into small pieces. Add the butter and cut it into the flour with a pastry blender or with a fork or your hands until the butter is in small, well-coated pieces. Stir in the buttermilk until the flour mixture is just moistened.

4. Drop the biscuit batter onto the fruit mixture in large spoonfuls. I you want a more cobbled appearance to your baked dessert, you can hold back some of the biscuit mixture. As written here, it will cover the dish as it bakes.

5. Place the baking dish on a sheet pan if desired. This will help insure against drips on the bottom of the oven. Bake at 375 F for 45-50 minutes or until the top is golden brown and baked through, and the fruit mixture is bubbling and thickened. Cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature with whipped cream or ice cream if desired.

Makes 6-8 servings.

Other recipe like this one: Fruit Crisp on Demand, Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with Graham Cracker Topping, Cherry Plum Crisp, Grandmama’s Buttermilk Biscuits

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