Peach Cobbler

I'm not sure who originally came up with the idea of baking a biscuit-like topping onto a fruit filling, but they surely should be recognized as being a genius. Besides being absolutely delicious, they are quick to make (although not as quick to bake... 40 minutes can seem like an eternity!). And who can resist the siren call of fruit in the winter? OK, so it's spring - but you could've fooled me here. This chilly weather has me hankering for some comfort food.

You can make cobbler with just about any type of fruit. Besides peach, some of my favorites are blueberry, blackberry, and apple. When fresh fruit is not in season, I use either canned or frozen fruit. In this case, I used peach pie filling I canned last summer. You can use the stuff from the store. It's not the same, but it'll do in a pinch. If you can find a market that sells locally made preserves and canned goods, that's be a good bet. If you are using fresh fruit, you will need to cook up the filling first. Use about 4 cups of fruit, sugar to taste (usually 1/3 to 1/2 cup), a little water to get things going (maybe 1/4 cup), and some cornstarch (4 TBS) as thickener. Be sure to add the cornstarch before the mixture gets hot. If using hot filling, your cooking time will be reduced slightly.

Peach Cobbler
Yield: 4-6 servings

1 quart of peach pie filling

1 cup flour
1/8 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp nutmeg
4 TBS butter
1 egg
1/3 cup milk

sanding sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix dry ingredients together. Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Beat egg and milk together and then stir into dry mixture. Pour fruit mixture into an 8x8x2 inch glass baking dish. Spoon batter over the top of the fruit mixture, spreading to cover most of the fruit. Sprinkle the top with sanding sugar (or regular granulated). Bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes or until top is nicely browned and a cake tester comes out clean. Be careful, sometimes it can look done but the batter can still be doing it's thing underneath. This is especially true if you have a lot of thick, cold filling under the batter when it goes into the oven. If this is the case, just bake a few minutes longer.