Ready for the best peach cobbler — ever? Here cinnamon-y sweet peaches are topped with flaky ricotta biscuits: and we dare you to eat just one bite.
It’s peach season! Those elusive days where peaches are ripe and juicy makes them all the more special. Peaches give me major nostalgia, remembering lazy summer days noshing on my mom’s famous peach pie. So today I’m thrilled to unveil another peach recipe that’s about to be famous: this incredible peach cobbler. Imagine: cinnamon-spiced, ripe and tangy peaches, covered in delightfully flaky ricotta biscuits. It’s truly something special, from the new cookbook Dappled, by Nicole Rucker, chef behind LA’s Fiona Bakery. Keep reading for more about the book and the recipe!
Related: Best Peach Recipes for Peach Season or 25 Perfect Peach Desserts
About the book: Dappled
If you’re a fruit dessert lover (like we are), the cookbook Dappled is for you. It’s written by LA baker Nicole Rucker, the face behind LA’s restaurant and bakery Fiona. She’s all about the decadence and creativity of fruit desserts: which can be just as indulgent and decadent as chocolate, right? The recipes are classic with creative takes, like Black and Blue Pie with Brown Sugar Crumb and Flourless Chocolate and Pear Spoon Cake.
For our preview recipe from the book, we chose this Peach Cobbler with Ricotta Biscuits…and man, was it a showstopper! Because my mom has such a stunning peach pie recipe, I’m a little picky about peach cobbler. No canned peaches or Bisquick topping here! Luckily, Nicole’s peach cobbler absolutely held up and will be a new family favorite.
Get it: Dappled: Baking Recipes for Fruit Lovers
How to make peach cobbler
Now, there are all sorts of ways to make a peach cobbler. And there are lots of ways to shortcut the work and make a decent peach cobbler. But this recipe is about making a stellar peach cobbler. That means making flaky ricotta biscuit dough: like the professionals do it! Nicole notes in the book that the ricotta melts into the biscuit in most places and created “a fluffy crumb that I had been trying to achieve for years but never knew the secret to”.
She also notes that these are dangerously addictive and to proceed with caution. You can’t say we didn’t warn you! To make the biscuits, you’ll whisk together cake flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and then add cold butter, mixing it in with your fingers until you get a pebbly dough. Then add the buttermilk and ricotta cheese and form a shaggy dough. Form it into a rectangle, then fold it into thirds. You’ll do this two more times to form the layers of the biscuits. Then refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes while you assemble the filling.
The filling for this peach cobbler is simple: just peaches, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and a little flour. It forms into a gooey, cinnamon-y mess that truly brings out the peach flavor. We made one tweak to the original recipe and cut the sugar back from 1 ½ cups to 1 cup. It was still incredibly flavorful, so we’d recommend it. Once the filling is ready, you’ll drop the biscuits onto the top of the filling. The original recipe called for cutting biscuits into 2-inch squares: here we did about 1-inch rectangles and the biscuits turned out quite large! Another option is you can drop blobs of dough onto the top of the filling: this would yield a more organic, free-form shape.
Then all you’ve got to do is bake it! It results in what we think is the best peach cobbler on the planet. Not even joking.
Have leftover ricotta? Try these Genius Ricotta Cheese Recipes.
How to peel peaches
Most peach dessert recipes call for removing the skin of the peaches. We use a peach peeler to skin our peaches: it’s a special vegetable peeler that is serrated and used for slippery fruits like peaches. Using a standard vegetable peeler can be difficult depending on the ripeness of the peaches and can also be time consuming. So we recommend a trying a peach peeler if you’re interested in adding this tool to your arsenal. Get it: Serrated peeler | Amazon
Here’s another a simple way to peel the peaches: without a knife or vegetable peeler! You’ll use boiling water, but just for a minute. It won’t cook the peaches; it will just make the skin easy to peel. Here’s how to peel peaches using the boiling water method:
- Prepare a large pot of boiling water.
- Drop one peach into the pot so that the water fully covers it, and boil for about 1 minute.
- Remove the peach from the water with a fork, and drop in the next peach.
- As the second peach boils, use a sharp knife to remove the thin skin of the peach (it should peel off in large sheets with your fingers). Repeat until all peaches are peeled.
And that’s it: how to make peach cobbler!
We hope you enjoy this recipe: it’s absolutely perfect for summer occasions that require a showstopper dessert! Like cookouts, potlucks, barbecues, baby showers, bridal showers: really all the things! Let us know if you try it in the comments below.
Related: Easy Peach Sangria
Looking for fruit desserts?
Outside of this best peach cobbler recipe, here are a few more fruit desserts that we love:
- The Best Peach Pie Recipe
- Classic Strawberry Shortcake
- Simple Peach Tart Recipe
- Classic Strawberry Crumble or Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
- Easy Blueberry Crisp
- Best Applesauce Cake
- Mini Apple Pies
- Mint Syrup with Peaches
- Triple Cherry Cheesecake
- Granola Instant Pot Apple Crisp
- Tart Cherry Chocolate Galette
- Easy Bananas Foster Recipe
- Angel Food Cupcakes with Berries
- Chocolate Banana Bread
- 10 Fruit Desserts to Try Now
This peach cobbler recipe is…
Vegetarian.
Print
Best Peach Cobbler
- Prep Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 10 1x
Description
Ready for the best peach cobbler — ever? Here cinnamon-y sweet peaches are topped with flaky ricotta biscuits: and we dare you to eat just one bite.
Ingredients
For the ricotta biscuit topping
- 2 ½ cups (250g) cake flour, plus more for rolling
- 1 ½ tablespoons sugar
- ½ tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 stick (113g) unsalted butter, cold and cut into ½-inch cubes
- 1 cup (236ml) cold buttermilk, plus more for brushing
- ¾ cup (186g) cold whole-milk ricotta cheese*
For the peach cobbler filling
- 2 pounds (908g) ripe peaches, skinned, pitted, and cut into ¾-inch pieces (about 6 cups)
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream, for brushing
Instructions
- Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Place the bowl in the freezer to chill for 20 minutes.
- Add the butter to the dry ingredients and toss to combine. Pinch and smear the pieces of butter between your fingers. Processing the butter like this creates small leaves of butter that layer in the dough, resulting in flakes later. Once all the butter chunks have been pinched, grab small handfuls of flour and butter and rub the two together between the palms of your hands until the mixture resembles uneven pebbles on a sandy beach.
- Create a well in the center of the mixture and add ½ cup of the buttermilk. Using a fork, toss the flour and butter from around the edge of the well into the center. Fluff the buttermilk and flour mixture with the fork five or six times, until shaggy looking.
- Crumble the ricotta cheese into tablespoon-size chunks over the dough, making sure not to break up the cheese too much. Using your hands with your fingers spread wide open, loosely incorporate the cheese into the dough with a lift-and-gently-squeeze motion. Drizzle the remaining ½ cup of buttermilk over the dough while using the fork to bring the mixture together into a loose and shaggy mass.
- Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and use your hands to shape the dough into a 10 x 7-inch rectangle. Fold the rectangle in thirds like a letter and then rotate 90 degrees. Using a rolling pin, flatten the dough back into a 10 x 4-inch rectangle. Repeat the folding, rotating, and rolling process two more times, ending with the dough shaped into a 10 x 4-inch rectangle of about 1-inch thickness. Wrap the dough with plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- While the dough sits, peel the peaches and cut them into 3/4-inch pieces.
- Position a rack in the center of your oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Place a parchment-lined baking sheet on the lower rack of the oven to catch any drips.
- Combine the peaches, sugar, lemon juice, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a 2-quart baking dish.
- Place 1-inch blobs or cut small squares of the dough on top of the filling (here the instructions called for 2-inch squares — we did about 1-inch squares and they were still rather large! Next time we’ll try the blob method). Brush the surface with the heavy cream.
- Bake the cobbler until the biscuits are browned and baked through and the juices bubble vigorously around the edges of the dish, about 45 minutes. Serve the cobbler warm. Any leftovers will keep well at room temperature overnight, but it’s really best eaten the same day.
Notes
Reprinted from Dappled: Baking Recipes for Fruit Lovers by arrangement with Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2019, Nicole Rucker. *The original recipe calls for draining the cheese for at least 1 hour in a fine-mesh strainer lined with two layers of cheesecloth. Our cheese was very thick and did not strain out any liquid after 1 hour — so this step can be optional depending on the texture of your cheese.
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Peach cobbler, How to make peach cobbler, Best peach cobbler
How does one get the recipe for your peach cobbler. I read about it on your book promo, but need he recipe and ingredient amount and steps in order to make it. Thanks
Hi! The recipe is at the bottom of the page, or here is a direct link: https://www.acouplecooks.com/best-peach-cobbler/print/41471/
I have baked many different peach cobbler recipes, and this is the best by far. My search for the perfect peach cobbler recipe ends now! The reduced amount of sugar works fine, as we don’t like it overly sweet. Everyone who sampled my cobbler agreed with my opinion.
So glad you enjoyed!