Sourdough Peach Cobbler (with Flaky Sourdough Biscuits)

This sourdough peach cobbler features sweet and jammy peaches topped with tender sourdough biscuits.

It’s that time of year where trees are laden and produce markets are bursting with freshly picked stone fruits. It’s time for peach cobbler!

This is the time my youngest son looks forward to the most. He waits for three quarters of the year, peachless and patient (I’m not a fan of buying fruit shipped from overseas, so we wait till it’s available locally.) Then when summer hits we load up on fruit.

Sourdough Peach Cobbler

A cobbler is essentially buttery shortcake on top of cooked fruit. Usually it’s placed over top of the fruit in rustic pieces, flattened pieces. Last year however I made a cobbler and topped it with buttery American-style biscuits. (I used this Bon apetit recipe here.)

I have to write ‘American-style’ because biscuits in New Zealand are the same as cookies, and you don’t want to put those on a cobbler…

Anyway, the American biscuit addition was SO great! So, I’ve decided to write a blog post about it, except I wanted to make a peach cobbler with sourdough starter, so I have made sourdough biscuits.

These biscuits are using sourdough discard starter, which is the starter that hasn’t been fed in a while. It means it will be very acidic which is what will help to create tender biscuits.

Learn how to make a sourdough starter here.

Sourdough Biscuits

The biscuits are made with using flour, butter, a little sugar and salt, discard sourdough starter and milk.

I used my food processor to cut the butter into the flour, then added in the sourdough starter and only enough cold milk to combine it into a dry, slightly crumbly dough.

Then the dough is shaped into a small but fat (2.5cm or 1 inch thick) square and cut into 4 pieces. These pieces are then stacked on top of each other. Stacking them like this, before rolling and cutting the biscuits adds a whole lot of layers.

Then this stacked dough pile is chilled in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, or up to 24 hours.

Once chilled, roll the dough once again into a small but fat square, 2.5cm square. Then cut the square into 16-18 small rectangles. These pieces will go over the peach filling. It’s best to make the filling before the biscuits are cut, while the dough is still chilling in the fridge. This is so the butter in the biscuits stay cold.

The cold butter will rise and create the flaky layers. Learn more about butter in baking here.

Peach Cobbler Filling

The cobbler filling itself is so so easy. Fresh peaches are sliced up, tossed with brown sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch, lemon juice and vanilla.

I bake this cobbler in a cast-iron skillet (though you can use a baking dish.) Tip the peaches into the skillet.

Assembling the Sourdough Biscuit Layer

Now it’s time to add over the biscuits.

Fit them snuggly over top of the peaches. There should be plenty of gaps though that show the peaches peeking through.

Once the biscuits are on, brush them with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. This gives a delicious little cinnamon crunch.

Then it’s time to bake.

Initially the cobbler goes into a very hot oven, around 200°C, (400°F). This is to give the biscuits a burst of heat, which will encourage them to rise nice and tall. Bake at this temperature for 15 minutes. After that, the temperature is reduced and the cobbler is baked for a further 35-40 minutes until the peaches are soft and the biscuits have browned.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream

Have you made this? Tag me and let me know! @home_grown_happinessnz

Have you made this? Tag me and let me know! @home_grown_happinessnz

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