Ina Garten-Inspired Peach Cobbler

Compiled by Igor Kukolj, Editor. Nobody here has cooked this — how these are made.

A gummy grey layer where the topping meets the fruit is the classic cobbler failure, and it is not caused by the dough.

Cold fruit has to be heated before it can start cooking anything above it, and in the meantime the underside of the topping sits in cooling steam. Bake the peaches on their own for fifteen minutes first, until the juices are actually bubbling, and then drop the cold dough on. The topping cooks from beneath as well as above, and the base sets instead of turning to paste.

Hot fruit, cold dough. That is the whole trick, and it works for any cobbler.

Cornflour, and let it macerate

Peaches release far more liquid than people expect. Toss them with the sugar and cornflour and leave them twenty minutes — the sugar draws juice out, the cornflour hydrates in it, and the filling thickens properly in the oven instead of setting into starchy pockets.

Keep the butter in visible pieces

The topping is a scone dough and rises the same way: pieces of cold butter turn to steam and push the crumb apart. Rub it in only until the largest lumps are the size of peas. Rubbed to fine crumbs, you get a dense biscuit lid.

Leave gaps in the topping

A sealed lid traps steam and the fruit boils rather than thickens. Spaced spoonfuls let the moisture out, which is why a cobbler looks like cobbles and not like a pie.

Peeling, or not

Skins soften completely in the oven and hold the slices together, so peeling is optional. If you want them off, cut a cross in the base, thirty seconds in boiling water, then into ice water — the skins slip away.

Storing

Two days at room temperature, loosely covered. The topping softens overnight; fifteen minutes at 180°C crisps it again. It does not freeze well — the peaches collapse.