not your granny’s peach cobbler

Sydney Hamilton

Not Your Granny’s Peach Cobbler

Print

With ImageWithout Image

Author: Sydney Hamilton

Prep time: 1 H & 20 MCook time: 40 MinTotal time: 2 Hour

I grew up in the south where meals were more than just food, it is something that brings everyone together. From soulful Sunday dinners to huge feasts for holiday celebrations, to mending healing hearts to expressing deep gratitude – when you put your heart into a meal, others could taste the love. I can remember so many people stopping by to say hello, build memories, and –of course—bringing a to-go box. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with Granny. She’s the one who filled my heart with the joy of cooking. She truly put her heart and soul into her cooking, I think someone coined the term soul food after eating one of her Sunday dinners. The most amazing part was that I can’t remember her ever bringing out a measuring cup, yet everything tasted so good every time! One thing she passed down to me was her peach cobbler recipe. Every time I make a peach cobbler, I consider it is an ode to her! This recipe is dedicated to my Granny. Although, I decided to do something a little different. My significant other, Anwaar Spence (Biomedical Engineer & MBA), and I (Aerospace Engineer & Mathematician) have found a lot of joy experimenting in the kitchen. We take time to understand the culinary art and learn new techniques! We have also taught each other a lot about our roots. We have often found that when you mix my southern roots recipes and his Caribbean roots recipes a new beautiful creation arises. This is “Not Your Granny’s Peach Cobbler,” but is certainly a cobbler to try! I used familiar southern spices that I learned from my granny and combined them with a few of his favorites, Jamaican All Spice & Maple. This cobbler is delectable!

Ingredients

Filling

• 8 Peaches
• ½ Cup Room Temperature Butter
• 2 tablespoons Cane Sugar
• 2 tablespoons Light Brown Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Maple
• 2 tsp Lemon Juice
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• ½ tsp Nutmeg
• ½ tsp Jamaican All Spice
• Pinch of Salt

Crust

• 1 ½ Cups Flour
• ½ Cup Very Cold Butter
• 1/3 Cup Ice Cold Milk (Whole Milk recommended)
• 1 tsp Cane Sugar
• ¼ tsp Almond Extract
• ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
• Pinch of Salt

Topping

• 1 tbsp of milk
• Pinch of Cane Sugar
• Pinch of cinnamon

Protocol

1. Preheat the oven to 375-degrees F (220-degrees C)
2. Mix the milk, almond extract, and vanilla extract and put the mixture in the refrigerator or freezer. This will make mixing the flavors throughout the dough easier later.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cane sugar, and salt. Once mixed well, add in the very cold butter. I used my potato masher, but a fork works well too!
4. Once in a clumpy sandy texture (you should still be able to discern some of the butter from the flour) slowly add in your milk of choice while mixing the dough. It should still be a crumbly dough once you are complete, so use less milk as needed. Make it into a ball and put the dough in the refrigerator.
5. Let the dough rest for at least 1 hour. Anywhere from 1 hour to overnight is great.
6. Next, let’s pit and slice the peaches.
7. In another large bowl, add the peaches, butter, cane sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, Jamaican allspice, lemon juice, and salt. Mix this all together until all of the peaches are evenly coated. It is okay if the butter is chunky on the peaches.
8. Once well mixed, put the peaches into the baking pan and pour the maple on top.
9. Take the crust out of the refrigerator and place the ball in between to piece of parchment paper to keep it together while rolling it out.
10. Rub a light layer of milk on top after rolling it out. This will help it stick together and help it brown in the oven.
11. Now place the dough on top of your dish (moist side up). Once on top of the dish, cut off any access dough. Caution: crust my crumble a bit, that’s okay, just place it back together on top of the dish.
12. Mix the sugar and cinnamon and lightly sprinkle it on top of the cobbler before placing it in the oven.
13. Let the cobbler cook for 40-45 minutes or until brown.
14. Lastly, take it out of the oven and enjoy! I love it with my favorite Vanilla Bean Ice Cream!

Notes:

This recipe can be made in 2 different ways! Not Your Granny’s Peach Cobbler (Southern) and Not Your Nana’s Peach Cobbler (Vegan). Anwaar has a dairy-free diet so we decided to make the cobbler both ways. Trust me, both ways are fantastic!

For an incredible dairy-free recipe, I recommend the following dairy-free milk and butter:

- Milk – Oat Milk, in general, is my favorite dairy-free milk, but it is incredible to bake with.

- Butter – ForA:Butter (comes in a yellow box) OR Miyoko’s Cultured Vegan Butter (Hint of Salt)

Since the crust is my favorite part of a cobbler, I make mine a bit thicker with fewer peaches just so I can have the perfect crust to peach ratio. The crust is what makes or breaks a dessert for me. My granny used to buy the crust and the cobbler was perfect every time! I am excited that I learned how to make a crust and learned some new culinary techniques in creating this recipe for y’all. I hope you enjoy it!

Cold Butter?

Why use cold butter and cold milk? Using cold butter creates air pockets in the pastry when it is in the over which translates to delicious flakiness for your crust. Keep the ice-cold will help to keep the butter from melting. If the butter melts before going into the oven then any chance of creating that fantastic flaky crust is gone.

Why Should Dough Rest?

If you thought that only people need rest, you are mistaken! Allowing the dough to rest enhances flavor, makes the pastry less dense, and brings back the elasticity in the dough after kneading. Here is why Cooking is Science: kneading dough gathers proteins into strands (aka gluten) and helps keep the dough elastic. Over kneading will stiffen those strands by and allowing the dough to rest give the gluten strands time to “relax.” We all want a moment to relax, including your dough. Fun Fact: a pinch of salt helps because it neutralizes gluten allowing them to lay better side by side.

Reference:

Inspired by Granny aka Ms. France! We miss and love you!

Created using The Recipes Generator