PEACHES AND DREAM

I love peaches. During the peach season I can’t get enough. During the off season I dream of peaches. Maybe it’s because the season for stone fruits is so short, just a few weeks in June/July for apricots and the months of July and August for peaches. You can buy either of those fruits anytime during the year but they won’t be at their peak and might not be local. I don’t make peach cobbler often for that reason. On the rare occasion when I have an abundance of peaches, I usually prefer to eat them as Nature intended. This summer, however, I’m vacationing with my husband, Sandy, in the “fruit bowl” of America here in Sacramento, California, where fresh peaches that haven’t been picked so green they never quite ripen are readily available at local markets and there’s a good chance your next-door neighbor has a peach tree and will give you some. So, the other night when we had friends over for dinner, I decided to make a peach cobbler. It was a huge hit and arguably the star of the meal. I’m sharing the recipe here in case you live where there are fresh peaches available and would like to try it. You can also use frozen peaches, which is almost as good. It’s my favorite peach cobbler recipe because it doesn’t have as much sugar as some recipes do, which allows the fruit flavor to come through.

OLD-FASHIONED PEACH COBBLER
8 medium to large fresh peaches
3/4 cup, plus 2 Tablespoons, granulated sugar, divided
¼ cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Generous pinch of ground nutmeg
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoon chilled unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 425 Fahrenheit.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Place whole, unpeeled peaches in boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain and rinse with cold water. Peel. (The skins should practically fall off the fruits at this point. ) Pit and cut into ½-inch wedges. Place in a large bowl and gently mix in lemon juice, then ¼ cup of the granulated sugar, all of the brown sugar, cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon, and all of the nutmeg. Place in a 2-quart baking dish and bake for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix together the flour, ½ cup of the remaining sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut the butter into small chunks and work into the dry ingredients with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Stir in ¼ cup of boiling water. Mix together with a fork just until combined (be careful not to overmix).

In a small bowl, mix together the remaining 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and the remaining ¾ teaspoon of cinnamon.

Remove peaches from the oven. Drop spoonfuls of the dough over the peaches. Sprinkle sugar-cinnamon mixture evenly over the dough and peaches. Bake for an additional 25-30 minutes or until the topping is golden. (You may need to cover with aluminum foil for the last 5-10 minutes of baking so it doesn’t overbrown.) Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!