Sourdough Peach Cobbler

This rustic Sourdough Peach Cobbler is juicy and made with a golden sourdough biscuit topping. It’s such an easy summertime dessert to make!

Peach cobbler combines the best of pie, shortcake, and biscuits to make a juicy summer dessert that showcases seasonal fruit with a high crust-to-fruit ratio. It’s a super laid-back Southern dessert to make and is excellent served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or cold heavy cream.

You can use any spices for this cobbler like cinnamon, but I love the peach and sweet paprika combination that adds some warmth, bright reddish-peach color, and balances out the sweetness of the fruit filling.

Top the sourdough peach cobbler with simple sourdough buttermilk biscuits that soak up some of the juicy filling, adding a tender and fluffy contrast with a tangy flavor. This creates perfect scoops when serving and gives it a homey, country feel.

Follow the detailed tips and recipe instructions below on how to make the perfect sourdough peach cobbler!

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🛠 Tools Needed

You only need a few basic tools to make this sourdough peach cobbler.

• Baking scale
  • Flour and sourdough starter can weigh differently from person to person, so weighing your ingredients is the best option! Measuring your ingredients by weight will make your baking more consistent and accurate.
• Mixing Bowl
  • You can mix the filling and biscuit topping by hand.
• Biscuit or Cookie Cutter
  • If you want round biscuit topping to look like cobblestones (hence, the cobbler name), then use a floured 3-4″ biscuit or cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits.
  • Otherwise, you could use your hands to make drop biscuits for a more casual appearance or use a bench scraper to cut into squares.
• Spatula
• Pastry Brush, for brushing the top with buttermilk.
• 12″ Cast-Iron Skillet or 9×13″ Ceramic or Glass Pan
  • Cobblers are rustic like Sourdough Strawberry Galette so I like to bake it in a large cast-iron skillet. Please note that peaches are acidic and while it’s never affected the flavor of my cobblers, some may prefer to not cook cobbler in a cast-iron skillet so it doesn’t affect the seasoning or flavor.
  • However, you can easily use a 9×13″ ceramic or glass baking pan as they have a similar surface area.

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🛒 Ingredients Needed

Please see below for my ingredient recommendations and potential substitutions.

Peach Filling

• Peaches
  • You can use fresh or frozen peaches for cobbler. I don’t recommend canned peaches since they have added sugar and become too mushy for cobbler.
  • One of my biggest tips for making cobbler is to taste the raw fruit before mixing the filling. If the peaches are ripe, juicy, and fresh, you may not need as much sugar. But if your peaches are a little underripe, mealy, and not sweet, I recommend doubling the sugar.
• Lemon
  • The zest and juice add brightness and freshness to the peaches, just like I use in my Sourdough Blueberry Yogurt Muffins and Sourdough Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake.
• Paprika (optional)
  • While it may sound unusual, paprika adds a more complex warmth to this cobbler that complements peaches.
  • I use sweet paprika, but smoked paprika can be intriguing as well.
  • Substitute with cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, or other warm spices you like. You could even do a mix of spices like in my Sourdough Banana Bread with Chai Spices.
• Cornstarch
  • The cornstarch is a thickening agent for the juicy peach filling.
  • For gelatinization, the filling needs to reach 203ºF (95ºC) or be bubbling.
• Brown Sugar
  • Taste your peaches and add more sugar if they aren’t as ripe or sweet.
• Vanilla Extract

Sourdough Biscuit Topping

• All-purpose flour
  • You can substitute some or all of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour or gluten-free flour. Cornmeal is another nice summery addition to these biscuits.
• Salt
• Granulated Sugar
  • These are sweet biscuits, more akin to shortcake. If you prefer less sweet biscuits, you could reduce the sugar some.
• Baking Powder & Baking Soda
  • To help the biscuits rise and stay fluffy.
• Unsalted butter, cold
  • Keep your butter cold when making biscuits or pastry like Sourdough Pop Tarts or Sourdough Discard Blueberry Scones.
• Sourdough Discard
  • Like adding vinegar to pie dough, sourdough discard adds acidity to sourdough biscuits, to reduce gluten development, leading to a more tender pastry. It also adds a slight more depth in flavor.
  • If you don’t have an active sourdough starter, learn how to make one in a week following my how-to guide. See my top sourdough starter tips and other sourdough discard recipes.
• Buttermilk
  • Helps bind the dough, adds acid, and tangy flavor.
• Raw sugar, for a sparkly and crunchy crust

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🍑 How to Make Sourdough Peach Cobbler

Follow this detailed recipe guide as you make the best sourdough peach cobbler in just four easy steps.

1. Mix the Peach Filling

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (177ºC).

Pit and slice the peaches to ¼-½” slices. I don’t peel peaches for cobbler, but you’re welcome to do so if you like.

Mix the peaches in a large bowl with the brown sugar, optional paprika or other spices, lemon zest, lemon juice, cornstarch, and vanilla extract.

2. Parbake the Filling

Peaches don’t break down like berries in cobbler, so precooking them ensures they’re soft with some texture without your biscuit topping overbaking.

Pour the peach filling into a 12″ cast-iron skillet or 9×13″ baking dish and bake for 10-20 minutes, or until the peaches are fork tender and begin releasing some of their juices.

The time varies depending on the ripeness of your peaches and if they’re frozen.

3. Make the Sourdough Biscuit Topping

While the peach filling cooks, make the biscuits. If the filling is done before your biscuits are made, just set the hot filling aside until you’ve cut out the biscuits.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together. Cut in small cubes of cold butter, toss with a fork to coats, and use your hands or a pastry cutter to break the butter down to small pea-sized pieces.

Then, pour in the sourdough discard and butter, and keep tossing with a fork to form large clumps of dough. Iit will still be shaggy (images 1 & 2).

Dump the biscuit dough out onto a clean surface and gently knead to bring it together to incorporate dry bits of dough into a cohesive mass. Pat down into a ½” thick slab and cut out biscuits with a 3” biscuit cutter (images 3 & 4).

Reroll out scraps and continue cutting out more biscuits. I usually get 9 or 10 biscuits for the topping.

4. Assemble and Bake

It may seem odd to put cold biscuits on top of a parbaked filling for cobbler, but the hot filling actually helps the biscuit topping cook all the way through so you don’t have any raw dough in your cobbler.

Arrange the sourdough biscuits on top of your cobbler (don’t worry, they’ll spread as the cobbler bakes to cover the topping).

Brush the top of the biscuits with buttermilk and sprinkle with raw or turbinado sugar for a sparkly, crunchy topping.

Finally, bake the sourdough peach cobbler for 40-50 minutes, or until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown and the filling is bubbling.

Let the cobbler cool for at least 15 minutes before serving so the filling can set and not burn.

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How to Store and Serve

Peach cobbler can be served warm or at room temperature. I prefer it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or cold cream drizzled on top.

You can store cobbler covered at room temperature for a day or in the refrigerator for up to five days. I don’t recommend freezing cobbler as the texture can change with the cornstarch in the filling.

It’s an excellent summer dessert for BBQs and cookouts, along with my Sourdough Brioche Hamburger Buns, Sourdough Hot Dog Buns, or this summery Sourdough Panzanella with Peaches & Burrata.

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

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