Peach cobbler that’s cakey, not mushy

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***RECIPE, SERVES 4-6***

3-4 fresh peaches
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
1 cup (120g) flour
1 cup (237mL) milk
1 stick, 1/2 cup (118g) butter
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
vanilla
peach liqueur (or plain water)

Cut the peaches into wedges and put them in a pan, reserving some particularly thin and attractive slices for garnish (if you care). Measure out the sugar and pour half of it in with the peaches. Put in a splash of liqueur (or water) to get the sugar dissolving and turn on the heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the peaches are as soft as you want them, adding liqueur or water as needed to maintain a nice syrup in the pan.

While the peaches are cooking, melt the butter and combine it with the remaining sugar, flour, milk, salt, baking powder and a splash of vanilla — stir until just smooth and ideally let sit 10 minutes before baking.

Grease your baking dish, pour in the peaches and their syrup, scoop the batter on top, then fold everything a couple times to create a marbled effect. Bake at 375ºF/190ºC until cracked and golden brown on top — mine took 40 min. If you’re putting reserved peaches on top for garnish, put them on halfway through the baking.

Honestly I’m not the biggest fan of fruit 
cobblers, so I worked on a recipe that would avoid the things I usually don’t like 
about fruit cobblers. Also we bought way too many peaches. I’ma use three for this, but 
four would work if you like it real fruity. I’m gonna start these in a pan, and this is how I 
cut peaches as I eat them — paring knife straight down to the pit, which locks the knife and 
protects your hand. Move over a little and do it again and a perfect little wedge pops 
out. It looks kinda badass and you don’t get fibers in your teeth or juice all over your 
face. That’s just a little life hack for you. But I’m using the same procedure to cut 
wedges into my pan. This way I don’t have to dirty a cutting board and I like how 
we’re getting the red flesh that normally sticks to the pit. That will actually 
color the syrup we’re gonna get going. Peach number three, and if you get a 
few particularly thin and attractive slices you can set those aside for a garnish. 
All done. Time for sugar. I will grab about three quarters of a cup of sugar, 150g, and I 
will put about half of that onto the peaches. Get it dissolving with a splash of 
water or maybe some peach liqueur, if you have it. Very nice. A lot of water is 
gonna come out of the peaches but not quite enough to keep the sugar dissolved during 
the whole cooking process so you need some other liquid. Heat on. Meanwhile I’ll melt a 
stick of butter, half a cup, 113g. Got that, it’s for the batter. Stir them peaches before 
the sugar burns. My heat is pretty high, because there’s a lot of mass in here to absorb 
it. There, you can see the syrup coming together. Alright, a cup of flour, 120g. Put in 
the rest of the sugar — that’s like quarter cup. Half a teaspoon kosher 
salt, or maybe a little less because I used salted butter. And then a teaspoon of 
baking powder. Stir stir stir those peaches. A cup of milk. 237mL. One day I want to 
try using a cup of the peach schnapps instead but you’d probably have to reduce 
the sugar a bunch. For flavor I’m just doing vanilla. Love vanilla and peaches, though 
some cinnamon or pumpkin spice would be nice and very traditional. Stir them 
peaches or else the bottom will burn. I’ll stir up this batter until it’s a very 
runny pancake consistency. It’s basically cake batter except it has no egg, so it’s gonna 
have more of a biscuity, soft shortbread vibe. It bakes up fluffier if you let the batter 
sit and autolyse for like 10 minutes while you’re finishing the peaches. This will be 
delicious but not particularly healthy for me. For real food, I turn to Hungryroot, 
sponsor of this video and the easiest But I really dislike the texture of cooked 
fruit — I don’t like feeling those mushy plant fibers. If you keep cooking, though, 
the fruit will get to the point where it breaks down and has more of a gel-like texture 
that I think is much nicer. So I’ll keep going. You can also just put the peaches and 
the sugar and the schnapps directly into your baking dish and give them 
their head start in the oven. That’s easier but it takes a long time 
— almost an hour. This is faster. I’m happy when they start to resemble 
canned peaches, which I absolutely love. They’re soft and yet more plump than they were 
before, thanks to the osmotic effect of the sugar. I want that syrup to flow out into the baking 
dish and I’m afraid it’s gonna set up firm by the time it cools a little, so I’ll loosen it 
with a last shot of liqueur and we’re done. Got a baking dish here, pretty 
standard size — quart and a half, liter and a half. Grease her up — this 
gets you a nice brown crust, brown edges. In go the peaches and all that beautiful pink 
juice. The batter has thickened enormously while resting — scoop all of that on top. 
And you could bake that as-is, but I like to scoop under the peaches and then fold once 
or twice, just to get a little marbled effect, and then I’m smoothing out the top to make 
room for my garnish, which I’ll put on later. In the oven at 375ºF, 190ºC. A little foil 
underneath in case that syrup boils over — I don’t think it will. Like 15 minutes 
later I’ll drop on my thin peach slices, this is just for pretty and they’ll look 
nicer if you don’t bake them the whole time. After about 40 minutes total in my oven I like how 
this looks — just bake it until the top is cracked and golden brown. And cobbler is one of the few 
things that tastes good straight out of the oven if you like it hot. Nobody expects clean slices 
— a serving of cobbler is just a pile of stuff. I really like that dense, cakey texture. 
It’s almost like an extremely fruity pound cake. It holds itself together more 
than other cobblers, so it’s less mushy. The peaches have almost broken down to 
a gel but they’re still recognizable as peach slices. There — now I don’t have to 
feel guilty about having bought too many peaches. I can instead feel guilty about 
eating syrup cake. That’s progress, baby.