There are countless different definitions of cobbler, though each is, in essence, some iteration of fruit baked beneath dough. This rather refined peach nectarine cobbler recipe defines it as lightly spiced stone fruits buried beneath marvelously airy, cake-like biscuits that soak up some of those juices and spice from the filling. And it has lotsa folks clamoring for more. Sorta rustic, sorta refined, sorta irresistible.–David Leite

Peach Nectarine Cobbler FAQs

Can I make this cobbler with other types of fruit?

Definitely. We encourage you to work with the fruits that are available to you and in season, as they’ll make the tastiest cobblers. For early in the summer, try this strawberry blueberry cobbler, and when apricots make their appearance, try this stunning apricot blackberry cobbler. Even those late summer tomatoes make a wonderful savory tomato and goat cheese cobbler.

How do I tell if my peaches and nectarines are ripe?

For fruit desserts like this peach nectarine cobbler, you want to make sure your stone fruits are very ripe. Unripe fruit, won’t taste as sweet, will be harder to peel, and won’t break down as much when baked. For tips on how to choose the best stone fruits, check out this article on how to choose perfectly ripe fruit.

A glass baking dish filled with peach nectarine cobbler with a spoon resting inside and a bowl of cobbler with ice cream on the side.
A round glass baking dish filled with peach nectarine cobbler and a spoon on the side.

Peach Nectarine Cobbler

4.67 / 6 votes
This peach nectarine cobbler combines lightly spiced stone fruit filling and cakey biscuit topping for a classic easy summer dessert.
David Leite
CourseDessert
CuisineAmerican
Servings6 to 8 servings
Calories477 kcal
Prep Time40 minutes
Cook Time40 minutes
Total Time1 hour 20 minutes

Ingredients 

For the biscuit topping

  • 1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter, cold and cut into chunks, plus more for the baking dish
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup heavy cream

For the peach nectarine filling

  • 1 1/4 lbs (about 4) quite ripe peaches
  • 1 1/4 lbs (about 4) quite ripe nectarines
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • Pinch grated nutmeg
  • Ice cream or whipped cream, for serving (optional)

Instructions 

Make the biscuit topping

  • Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Butter a 9-inch (23-cm) glass or ceramic round pie plate or baking dish.
  • In a food processor, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Scatter the chilled butter over the flour mixture and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Be careful not to overprocess this.
  • Transfer the flour mixture to a large mixing bowl and add 1/2 cup of the sugar and the cream, mixing with a wooden spoon just until the dough comes together. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let it rest while you make the filling.

Make the peach nectarine filling

  • Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Using a paring knife, cut a small “X” on the bottom end of each peach and nectarine. Drop the stone fruits into the boiling water and cook until the skin begins to lift away from where you made the cut, 30 to 60 seconds. Use a slotted spoon to remove them from the water and let cool.

    ☞ TESTER TIP: The boiling water trick for easy removal of skins from some stone fruits only works on exceptionally ripe fruit. If your peaches or nectarines aren’t completely ripe, don’t bother. Instead use a peeler or paring knife to remove the skin.

  • When the fruit is cool enough to handle, slip off the skins and toss them in the compost. Cut the peaches and nectarines into slices 1/2 inch (12 mm) thick.
  • In a large bowl, toss the sliced peaches and nectarines with the cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
  • Spoon the fruit into the prepared baking dish. Place heaping spoonfuls of the cobbler dough on the filling, covering the surface.
  • Place the baking dish on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any drips and bake until the cobbler is lightly browned and cooked through and the fruit is bubbling, 35 to 45 minutes.

    ☞ TESTER TIP: You want to make certain the biscuits are fully cooked through, so take a fork and gently pry a biscuit apart and take a peek. It should appear to be the same color and texture throughout and be cakelike and springy rather than wet and dense.

  • Let the cobbler cool for at least 10 minutes before scooping it warm from the baking dish. If desired, serve it along with ice cream or whipped cream.
Brown Sugar Kitchen Cookbook

Adapted From

Brown Sugar Kitchen

Buy On Amazon

Nutrition

Serving: 1 portionCalories: 477 kcalCarbohydrates: 80 gProtein: 7 gFat: 16 gSaturated Fat: 9 gMonounsaturated Fat: 4 gTrans Fat: 1 gCholesterol: 55 mgSodium: 212 mgFiber: 4 gSugar: 40 g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Tried this recipe?Mention @leitesculinaria or tag #leitesculinaria!
Recipe © 2014 Tanya Holland. Photo © 2014 Jody Horton. All rights reserved.

Recipe Testers’ Reviews

Select a Tester

This nectarine and peach cobbler is one of the best—and easiest—I’ve ever made! The combination of the peaches and nectarines gives it the perfect balance of sweet and tangy while not being too peachy or too nectarine-y. Heads up, though, you may want to make extra dough because I couldn’t stop nibbling this while I was prepping the filling! It’s very similar to a shortcake—buttery, sweet, soft, irresistible!

I highly suggest you serve this with vanilla bean ice cream.

I have one complaint about this peach nectarine cobbler recipe and it’s a BIG one. There is absolutely no way possible that this serves 6 to 8 people. Honestly. It served 3 of us and there was nearly a fistfight when a fourth person expressed mild interest. Thanks for the drama, Leite’s!

Grotesque piggishness aside, this is INCREDIBLE. I have never, ever had this kind of cobbler. I realize that fruit desserts of this kind are regional and I just haven’t been exposed to the kind topped with biscuits. My go-to is just a handful of brown sugar, oats, flour, and butter. Is that a crisp? A crumble? A buckle? A carbuncle? A canoodle? Whatever those are, it’s not this.

Peaches and nectarines are, far and away, the entire reason that summer exists. And sweet, sweet biscuits are the reason for everything else. I apologize for the effusive nature of this review, but I can’t stress enough how much we enjoyed this. I’m actually planning a second batch this afternoon in order to sate those family members who missed out the first time. But check in with me later, I might just lock myself in the garage and go fully Mr. Creosote with just an empty pan and stretched out pants to show for it. Sorry, family!

I found the nectarines needed a little longer in the boiling water but they could have been just a little underripe. Even so, the skins came off quickly and easily with little waste of flesh.

In closing, this is a beautiful marriage of tender and sweet summer fruits (fresh or canned) and delightfully sweet, fluffy, and oh-so tender biscuits. I served it with fresh whipped cream but I imagine that ice cream would absolutely put it over the top.

I approached this peach nectarine cobbler recipe with some trepidation mixed with a little optimism as I’m not a fan of fruit desserts with biscuit-y accompaniments. More specifically, I’m not a fan of fruit with a baked side of crumbling rock, which is what a lot of cobblers and shortcakes have reminded me of through the years. But I was convinced there must be a good formula out there. So, hooray! This recipe delivered a delicious fluffy, cake-y topping with a really nice sweetness. No dense, flour-y, limestone-like texture. I’m a believer.

The fruit, well, that’s usually the easy part as long as you have nice, ripe good quality going in…which I did, so no sweat.

The quick boil method made for easy peeling. I used a ceramic 8-inch square dish that was maybe a smidge small but doable. The instructions also say to plop tablespoons full of the batter on top–that also doesn’t seem right based on the picture and my experience. I plopped more like small ice cream scoop sized portions over top. That approach worked great, covered the whole lot, and looked more like the picture. Lastly, I think the timing for baking is a bit off–although hard to tell since I modified the pan.

I took it out of the oven after about 30 minutes because the fruit was bubbling and the top was risen and uniformly brown but I discovered after resting and then scooping that the batter was raw in the middle though fine at the edges. Back in the oven it went, probably for another 12 minutes, even though mine certainly looked done initially.

Everything tasted great and got rave reviews.

Stone fruit cobbler is my favorite summer dessert and I’ll make this one again. Well worth the effort.

The biscuit dough came together perfectly. Next time I’ll skip the blanching and peeling as it isn’t necessary. I totally forgot to add the sugar to the fruit but it wasn’t missed! The cinnamon and nutmeg were perfect.

I found that 35 minutes baking time was adequate. I might go 5 minutes more to get the biscuits a little crunchier. This would serve 6 easily and there is some left for breakfast the next day!

While I found this recipe to be comforting and delicious, I felt it needed a little punch in terms of flavor. I think some lemon juice in the filling and lemon zest in the topping would be a fun addition. Otherwise, my whole family enjoyed this cobbler, warm, topped with vanilla ice cream! This easily served 8 and you could get 10 with ice cream or whipped cream.

This is a tasty and simple take on a classic. Fix it when peaches are ripe and plentiful or use canned fruit for an even easier recipe.

I found that 35 minutes was just right for lightly browned cobbler and bubbling fruit.

I only had 2 people to share the hot cobbler with when it came out of the oven. We ate about a third of it and a day later we ate another third. We found it to be good on its own and very good with vanilla ice cream. This recipe will serve a small crowd, even as many as 8 to 10.

A close view of a homemade peach nectarine cobbler.

This was a delightful dessert that really celebrates the glories of ripe stone fruit in the summer. The spices in the filling complement the stone fruits without upstaging them, providing backing vocals rather than taking center stage. The topping ingredients don’t look like they’ll produce anything memorable, but you’ll want to eat the raw dough straight from the bowl, it’s so good. It bakes up insanely fluffy with a lightly browned and crisp outer shell.

I baked it for 35 minutes and it had a lovely light brown top. I baked it before dinner so we ended up eating it after it had rested for 2 hours and it was delightful.

The biggest mistake you could make with this recipe is falling into the semantic quagmire of whether this really is a “cobbler’ or not. Don’t be that person: just make it. Pretty sure when Shakespeare was writing Juliet’s dialogue about roses and names, he was really addressing regional naming differences in leavened fruit desserts and their taste. It’s freaking delicious and when you have your first bite, you won’t care what it’s called.

Typically when testing baked goods, I try to distribute them to neighbors and friends, but my family forbade this from being given away and we enjoyed it for dinner and for breakfast the next morning with coffee. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream (or lightly sweetened yogurt if you’re having leftovers for breakfast) to really round it out.

A peach nectarine cobbler in a glass baking dish.

Summer in every bite! The peach and nectarine cobbler is especially delicious, featuring juicy peaches and tasty nectarines. The perfect summer dessert for the whole family. Definitely not to be missed.

I served it warm with lashings of ice cream and cream. Left cold in the fridge, it was demanding to be eaten for breakfast. The sentimental flavors of juicy peaches and nectarines, warm spices, and gooey cobbler dough are in every spoonful.

It was gone all too quickly and is now a fond summer memory. A delicious treat to be made again and again.

Given my mistake on selecting unripe fruit, it took much longer for the X to curl away from the fruit. After 2 minutes it hadn’t really worked. Using a paring knife, I managed to remove all the skin. It wasn’t pretty! My sense is that if my fruit was very ripe, the timing would be accurate.

As a young girl, I’d assist my mother in the preparation of baked goods for our family of eight. She taught me her methods to roll out dough for pie crust and the importance of order when combining certain ingredients for a cake. Every summer, she’d make cobbler, a staple dessert in my family. After making sure I’d washed my hands, she’d ask me to mix the dry ingredients with the chilled cubes of butter with my hands. I’m told eating certain foods brings back memories but for me, lost memories returned while I prepared the cobbler. I recalled the sensation of squishing butter into flour with my fingertips although I did use a food processor as instructed.

Prepping the baking dish was another assigned task—my mother would hand me a wrapper from a stick of butter with softened butter and I’d smear the butter ‘real good” around each side and across the bottom until I heard her “okay, good enough” approval.

The recipe breaks down into 3 main parts—make the cobbler dough, slice and sweeten the fruit, and combine the two in a dish and bake.

I’d recommend starting to heat the large pot of water ahead of making the dough so that once you’re done, you’ll be able to jump right into a quick boil of the fruit. The skin of the peaches and nectarines curled away as desired, though the nectarines took about a minute or two longer. I’d suggest starting with the nectarines and then add the peaches 1 minute in.

The cobbler took closer to 40 minutes to bake so that the top looked browned and the fruit bubbled.

With the first bite of cobbler, I felt conflicted at never imagining a cobbler tasting better than my mother’s…but it did. The phrase “fruit forward” came to mind, a phrase I’d heard to describe jammy wines. The peach and nectarine flavors were clean and light, not heavy or sugary like the cobbler of my childhood.

I approached this recipe with the heart of a cynic, a heart melted by a warm mouthful bursting with naturally sweet fruity flavor. Simple to make. Delicious to eat. I’m 100% certain my mother would love it.

Select a Tester

This recipe was a hit in my family! I’m not the biggest fan of peaches and nectarines but in this dish, they are perfect. The cobbler topping is flaky with just the right amount of sweetness and fluffiness.

If I made this again, I would maybe add in a plum to add some tartness. Topped with homemade ice cream, it was delicious.

A serving of peach nectarine cobbler topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I’m going to preface this by saying I love a good cobbler. It’s not something I make often because it’s not freezer friendly, but I do love them. When I saw this recipe I was drawn to it because it used both peaches and nectarines. I don’t usually see many nectarine recipes. The combo of both fruits was nice, the sweetness from the peaches balanced by the tartness from the nectarines. My Dad also loves cobbler, peaches, and nectarines, so I knew I could give him half of the cobbler. It was a very easy recipe. Something that you can make before dinner, bake, and have ready for dessert.

There was nothing in this recipe to make it stand out against other peach cobblers out there. Yes, there was nectarines, but that alone wasn’t enough to make it an OMG cobbler. Lastly, putting the fruit in boiling water was a good theory, and for the peaches it worked. But the nectarines, I still had to use my peeler to get the skin off. I even kept them in the water longer and the skin didn’t slid off.

I will make this again but adding some sugar on top before baking to add some sparkle and sweetness!




About David Leite

I count myself lucky to have received three James Beard Awards for my writing as well as for Leite’s Culinaria. My work has also appeared in The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Yankee, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and more.


Hungry For More?

Cheese Danish with Fruit Filling

A startlingly spectacular made-from-scratch cheese Danish that is going to forever change your notion of what a cheese Danish ought to be.

1 hr

Coconut Cream Pie

A retro classic with a velvety coconut custard buried beneath billows of sweet, luscious, airy meringue and cushioned by a tender, flaky, buttery lard crust. You’re welcome.

1 hr

Brownie Pie

Known in some parts as tar heel pie, this ridiculously rich chocolate brownie pie filling is impossibly fudgy, so much so it’s simply too gooey to consume out of hand.

4 hrs


Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




6 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    I made this for a Fourth of July dessert. It was spectacular. “Best cobbler ever” The biscuit topping was absolutely perfect. I used half and half. It was tender inside and a perfect crunch on the edges. I added a handful of raspberries and a sprinkle of nutmeg as well. Served with a local farm homemade blueberry ice cream for an exquisite finish.

    1. Jenn, the extra fat in the heavy cream is going to give you that rich flavor and tender texture in your biscuit topping. You can substitute with milk, and it should work, but the flavor and texture of the topping won’t be quite the same.

  2. 5 stars
    This is fabulous. You can’t go wrong with perfectly ripe peaches and nectarines, but those biscuits on top stole the show! I was hopeful that there would be leftovers to eat for breakfast but my greedy family made sure there were none.