Simple, unassuming, homemade fresh fruit cobblers are one of my all-time favorite desserts — quick and easy to assemble, and I generally have most of the ingredients on hand. I recently had a dinner date with a friend and her family, and we decided on chili and hoecakes for the main course. It’s become tradition for me to do the dessert, and cobbler sprung to mind as the perfect complement to our meal so I created this Blackberry Peach Cobbler Recipe. Now I know I don’t need to tell y’all this, but it’s important so I’m saying it anyway. It’s blasphemy to eat cobbler without ice cream, so serve each slice warm with a big scoop of french vanilla ice cream melting on top and everyone will love you forever.
My friend follows a gluten-free diet, so I like to use our dinner dates as a chance to experiment with GF dessert recipes. This was my first time making a gluten-free cobbler, so I applied my past experience baking regular cobblers and my ongoing experimentation with different types/quantities of GF flour to come up with the recipe. Cobbler toppings vary from savory biscuit crusts to more crumbly crunchy toppings, but my personal favorite and what really makes a cobbler for me is a sweet buttery crust, crisp and browned on the edges but soft and light in the center with a cake-like texture. This gluten-free version is just that.
The cobbler turned out really tasty and got great reviews all around, but I felt that it didn’t have quite the right proportion of batter to fruit so the recipe below is altered accordingly and should end up with a bit more batter on top than what you see in the pictures. It was also a tad too sweet for me, although everyone else thought the sweetness was just right, so I have notes in the recipe on reducing the sugar if you are weird like me and prefer less sweet desserts.
It may seem counterintuitive to layer the fruit over the crust since the crust ends up on top, but the high quantity of baking powder in my Blackberry Peach Cobbler Recipe causes the crust to rise up over the fruit. I’ve made cobbler with fruit on the bottom before, and I found the issue with that method was that it stuck to the bottom of the dish even though I greased the dish prior to baking. This method has worked much better for me, so it’s my go-to these days.
I use fresh blackberries and peaches for the filling with orange juice and cardamom to enhance the flavor. I don’t peel my peaches because I like the texture and color that the skin adds to the cobbler, but you can peel them if you prefer or if you’re serving a picky crowd. I use cardamom in a lot of recipes because it’s one of my favorite spices, but if you don’t like cardamom or don’t have any on hand you can substitute an equal amount of cinnamon or ginger, or use nutmeg or mace and cut the amount in half. It’s kind of hard to go wrong with cobbler, but feel free to ask questions about substitutions in the comments, always happy to help you do your thing!
Gluten-Free Blackberry Peach Cobbler Recipe
(6-8 servings)
Ingredients:
Filling
- 4 peaches, pitted and sliced, peeled if you prefer*
- 6 oz blackberries*
- ¼ c orange juice
- 2 tsp cardamom (see notes above for substitutions)
- ½ c raw sugar (reduce to ¼ c to make it less sweet)
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
*4-5 cups of fruit total, substitute fruit depending on season and preference
Crust
- ½ c almond flour
- ½ c sorghum flour
- ½ c potato starch
- ¾ c sugar
- 1 ½ tbsp baking powder
- ½ tsp xanthan gum
- ½ tsp salt
- ¾ c melted butter
- ¾ c milk or half & half
- 2 tsp vanilla paste or extract
Method:
Preheat oven to 350°. Butter a 9” square glass or ceramic baking dish.
Mix all filling ingredients in large mixing bowl until fruit is evenly coated, set aside.
In separate medium mixing bowl, whisk all dry crust ingredients together, then whisk in melted butter, milk, and vanilla just until combined.
Spoon crust mixture into greased baking dish and smooth with a rubber spatula. Pour fruit filling over crust, then bake at 350° until sides and top of crust are browned, 45-60 minutes. When done, the crust will be evenly browned on top, spring back slightly to the touch and be a little crisp on the edges. You can test with a toothpick to make sure it’s done, but watch out for the fruit filling as that can make it difficult to get a tester to come out clean.
Let the cobbler cool for 15-20 mins and serve warm, topped with vanilla ice cream if desired. I kinda think it’s a crime to leave out the ice cream, but you do what you want, I trust your judgement. 😉