Farmer’s Market Finds: White Peach Cobbler

My husband’s first Father’s Day was the perfect excuse to make his favorite summer dessert, peach cobbler. There is no shortage of peach cobbler recipes online, with endless variations on the theme. My husband reassured me that recipes, in general but especially for this dish, were guides and not the gospel, as his “Big Mama” pretty much went by taste. I decided to adapt this recipe. It had a strong rating even after over 1400 reviews. How could I go wrong?

My previous cobblers used canned peaches, but this recipe called for fresh, which gave us a perfect excuse to visit our favorite local farmer’s market. So, with recipe in-hand (on my smartphone), we headed to the Irvine Farmer’s Market.  The produce was shockingly beautiful and the summer fruit was especially tasty. Although the recipe called for yellow, after tasting a few samples, I couldn’t pass up the chance to buy some white peaches, by far the sweetest of the bunch.

Going with fresh peaches meant I would have to peel them. A couple of my favorite food bloggers suggested that skinning the peaches was the best technique. “Easy” they called it. I gave it a shot because the premise seemed simple enough: cut an X at the bottom of each piece; submerse them in boiling water for 30-40 seconds; remove them from the boiling water and put them into an ice bath to stop the cooking; and then the skin should peel off easily. Easy, right?

Wrong – it was a peach skinning fail. Maybe I didn’t leave them in the boiling water long enough. I also used an ice bath, which is another point of disagreement online, but regardless, I had to break out the pairing knife and get it done the old fashioned way.

The rest of the recipe was pretty straightforward.  I added an extra ¼ cup of brown sugar and white sugar as well as an extra tablespoon of cinnamon to the peach mixture, per my husband’s request. Despite the slight adjustments to the recipe, this peach cobbler recipe is a keeper – Jade loved it, and it was a fun excuse to use gorgeous local peaches to celebrate my husband’s first father’s day.