After last years’ peach crop failure though out the entire state, it’s a luxury to be enjoying fresh Maine peaches: intensely fragrant, perfectly ripe, sweet and juicy, with velvety, red-blushed skin and soft orange flesh. When my friend Deb picked clean two trees laden with almost-ripe fruit before an impending wind storm and offered them up to me, how could I refuse?
Hand-ripening fruit like peaches (or tomatoes) is a labor of love that yields delicious results, second only to vine or tree-ripened fruit. While we all enjoy picking and eating food that is impeccable, so do many other creatures. Birds, particularly crows, are know to peck and leave holes, while squirrels steal the fruit and even shake the plant or tree. Voles, moles and mice scurry under the leaves, sampling and gnawing horrific gashes.
So for us farmers, foodies and fruit connoisseurs, the anticipation of cooking and eating every perfectly ripe, sensual bite is worth the time investment of checking, handling and grading each and every piece of fruit each and every day.
With peaches, I save the perfectly ripe fruit to eat out of hand or bake into elegant tarts. Beautiful fruit, just a touch under ripe, is perfect on the grill, or delicious in the winter when canned in a simple syrup. I like to cut blemished fruit up to freeze for smoothies or bake into muffins, pies, and cobblers.
Fresh Peach Cobbler is my new favorite dish for these waning days of summer. Adapted from a recipe in the Silver Palate Cookbook, this homespun, deep dish is everything you could want in a cobbler: sublime, sweet juicy fruit with hints of lemon and orange, topped with a rich biscuit crust, thick enough to sop up all the delicate pink juices. Yum!
For dessert, serve Fresh Peach Cobbler with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. The cake is good with yogurt as a snack, packed in the lunchbox, or warmed up for breakfast. While my labor of love is truly a treat that showcases America’s third most popular fruit, trade secret, it’s also delicious when made with frozen or canned fruit.
Fresh Peach Cobbler
Ingredients
- 6 - 8 cups peeled and sliced ripe peaches about 2 pounds*
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon lemon extract or 1 teaspoon lemon zest, optional
- ¼ teaspoon orange extract optional
- 1 ½ cups all- purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 6 tablespoons butter plus 2 tablespoons to butter the pan
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 tablespoons sugar to sprinkle on top
Instructions
- Assemble ingredients and tools. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
- Butter a 2- quart baking dish or pan with 1 – 2 tablespoons butter (Recommended pan sizes: 9 inch x 9 inch square, 10 or 11 inch round, or 7 inch x 12 inch rectangle)
- If using fresh peaches, peel and pit the peaches. Wash peaches and put in a large pot. Cover with boiling water and bring water to a boil. Cook for a minute or two, until the outside of the peaches just start to cook and you can see the skin split.
- Remove from heat, drain, and soak the peaches in a pan of cold water. Rinse a peach under cold water and pull the skin away to the compost. Twist the peach in half and remove the pit. Continue with the remaining peaches, and then slice the peaches into pieces into a medium bowl.
- Add 2/3-cup sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest or lemon extract, and orange extract to the bowl of peaches.
- Stir well and spoon the mixture on the bottom of the buttered baking dish. Bake the peaches until they start of cook and soften, about 15 – 20 minutes.
- While the peaches are baking, prepare the topping.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the all purpose flour, baking powder, and 1-tablespoon sugar. Using a pastry blender (or a food processor) cut in the butter until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
- Measure the milk into small bowl or pitcher, add the egg and whisk together. Add this liquid to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.
- Remove the peaches from the oven. Using a spoon, drop pieces of the batter over the top of the peaches. If needed, smooth a bit to cover the top. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar over the top and bake until the mixture is bubbly and the top golden brown, about 20 minutes.
- Serve warm with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or yogurt.
