Recipe From the Coffee Window: Peach Cobbler

Recipe: Peach Cobbler
Serves: about 6
Coffee: Burundi – Birabereye

In some parts of the country, this old fashion baked fruit and dough dish is called a “buckle,” pan-dowdy,” or “grunt.” But around here, it’s known as “cobbler.” You can make it with different fruit – like apples or pears in the fall – but at La Colombe, we are welcoming peach season, a great cobbler combo when paired with coffee ice cream and our Dulche de Leche, a caffeine-spiked twist on the classic caramelized cream you can find in every coffee-growing country in Central and South America. Although some chefs may try to add a touch of reality to their fancy restaurant menus by annexing the fruit cobbler, it will always be the domain of the home cook. We take a certain comfort in that.

Ingredients
Fruit Filling Mixture
2 pounds peach slices (peeled)
Pinch coarse salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon All-Purpose flour

Sweet Biscuit Topping
1 cup All-Purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch coarse salt
6 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup buttermilk

Method
Preheat oven to 350 °F.
8-inch square Pyrex baking dish

Toss together the filling mixture until the fruit is coated in a light “syrup” of the ingredients, meaning the sugar is all dissolved and the flour evenly incorporated.

Scrape out the peaches into the baking dish, spreading into an even layer, and place in the hot oven until the liquid around the fruit is lightly bubbling around the edges, for 25 to 30 minutes.

While the fruit is cooking, prepare the sweet biscuit topping. Combine the dry ingredients, and cut in the butter. Measure out the heavy cream and buttermilk, but do not add until you are ready to top the fruit. (Keep the ingredients somewhere cool so the butter doesn’t melt.)

When fruit is ready (liquid lightly bubbling around the edges), remove baking dish from oven, and mix to reincorporate. At this time, bump up the oven temperature to 357 °F.

Add the liquid to the dry biscuit ingredients, and mix only until just combined or barely so. (Mix too much, and the nice flakey biscuits will turn tough during baking.) Spoon dollops of the biscuit topping onto the hot fruit, and place back in the hot oven until golden brown, maybe 30 to 40 minutes.

Serve warm.