There’s nothing like a good bowl of peach cobbler.
When I first set out to make a pan of it, I realized how much I had missed eating it. For some reason I had fallen out of the habit of baking, and I suddenly remembered why. I’m not that good at it. No, the baking gene landed in the hands of my youngest daughter, who can whip up a carrot cake, a tiramisu cake and a lemon chiffon pie without blinking an eye. Just typing those words makes me break out in a sweat, but it doesn’t faze her in the least.
I learned over the years, however, that I could impress dinner guests or hungry little mouths with a nice dish of hot apple, peach or cherry cobbler. Mixing them together made me feel like a gourmet cook! Adding ice cream atop the steaming crumbled mass of fruit and crunchy topping was an exercise in decadence. “Wow, this is great! How did you learn to cook this good?” they’d ask, wanting to know the recipe for the exotic hot concoction.
There are dozens of variations and different ways to serve it, but the ingredients were fairly simple: fruits, sugars, butter, flour and love. Pretty basic. I could handle that. “It’s a secret family recipe” I whispered, and then pointed to my heart.
Living in apple country these many years later has increased my affection for the cobbler. The seemingly unending supply of apples enabled me to bake to my hearts content. So many apples, it became so easy to make I became complacent, turning it into a routine dessert and not the special treat it once was.
Enter the peaches. A peach cobbler was elegant and had a shorter season, marking the urgency of its arrival to the table. It’s ingredients were the same, with love the final touch. “Wow, this is great!” said my beloved as he spooned the sweet and sticky dessert into his mouth. “Where’d you get this recipe?” I just smiled and tapped my heart again, but also knowing a lot more had gone into this recipe than in dishes past. No worse for wear, the most ingredient stood out above the rest.
When I first set out to make a pan of it, I realized how much I had missed eating it. For some reason I had fallen out of the habit of baking, and I suddenly remembered why. I’m not that good at it. No, the baking gene landed in the hands of my youngest daughter, who can whip up a carrot cake, a tiramisu cake and a lemon chiffon pie without blinking an eye. Just typing those words makes me break out in a sweat, but it doesn’t faze her in the least.
I learned over the years, however, that I could impress dinner guests or hungry little mouths with a nice dish of hot apple, peach or cherry cobbler. Mixing them together made me feel like a gourmet cook! Adding ice cream atop the steaming crumbled mass of fruit and crunchy topping was an exercise in decadence. “Wow, this is great! How did you learn to cook this good?” they’d ask, wanting to know the recipe for the exotic hot concoction.
There are dozens of variations and different ways to serve it, but the ingredients were fairly simple: fruits, sugars, butter, flour and love. Pretty basic. I could handle that. “It’s a secret family recipe” I whispered, and then pointed to my heart.
Living in apple country these many years later has increased my affection for the cobbler. The seemingly unending supply of apples enabled me to bake to my hearts content. So many apples, it became so easy to make I became complacent, turning it into a routine dessert and not the special treat it once was.
Enter the peaches. A peach cobbler was elegant and had a shorter season, marking the urgency of its arrival to the table. It’s ingredients were the same, with love the final touch. “Wow, this is great!” said my beloved as he spooned the sweet and sticky dessert into his mouth. “Where’d you get this recipe?” I just smiled and tapped my heart again, but also knowing a lot more had gone into this recipe than in dishes past. No worse for wear, the most ingredient stood out above the rest.
Yes, there’s nothing like a good bowl of peach cobbler, in all its delicious glory and especially on cool autumn evenings such as these. I hope you enjoy eating it as half as much as I did making it. Because sometimes, the simplest recipes are the best.
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