It’s the summer and summer means delicious peaches are in season!

With all these luscious sweet fruits to work with, I’ve appreciated being able to make desserts that I don’t make the rest of the year – peach crisp and peach cobbler.

In case you’re wondering what the difference is, peach crisp is a baked dessert that uses a crumb topping over the peach filling. With peach cobbler, the cooked peach filling is baked with a biscuit dough – sometimes the dough is placed on top, sometimes on the bottom. I tried making it both ways in the last couple of weeks.

I have fond memories of my mother making peach crisp when I was a child, so I enjoy it when I have a chance to make it. It’s an easy dessert to make, and easy to make gluten free. Here’s the recipe I made:

Peach Crisp

• 4-5 peaches, sliced
• 1 c. ground walnuts (or any other nut flour)
• 1 c. oatmeal
• 2/3 c. sugar
• 1/2 t. cinnamon
• pinch salt
• 1/2 c. melted butter/coconut oil
• 1 t. vanilla

Place the sliced peaches in a pan. Mix all the remaining ingredients for the topping, then sprinkle on top of the peaches. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celcius for 40 – 45 minutes. Serve hot.

Frugal note: if you don’t have nut flour (and many times I don’t), just substitute an equal amount of oatmeal. To be clear, I don’t mean rolled oats, but the chopped rolled oats that are sometimes sold as instant oatmeal. If you only have rolled oats, whiz them in a food processor to make them smaller.

The peach crisp is on the right in the picture below (one pan was already eaten by the time I thought to take a picture for you!); the peach cobblers are the other two pans.

Peach Cobbler

• 5 c. fresh peach or nectarine slices
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 T. potato starch
• 1 T. lemon juice

Topping:

• 1 c. flour (use a gluten free flour mix to keep this gluten free)
• 2 T. sugar
• 2 T. brown sugar
• 1 t. baking powder
• 3 T. butter or coconut oil that has been refrigerated so it’s solid
• 1 egg
• 4 T. milk or coconut milk

Combine the peaches with sugar, potato starch and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, let cook for a couple of minutes. Pour the peach mixture into a 9 x 13″ baking pan.

Mix the dry topping ingredients together. Cut in butter/coconut oil. Mix the milk and egg together, then combine them with the dry ingredient mixture. Stir until just combined to keep the crust flaky. Drop this mixture by spoonfuls on top of the peach filling. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celcius for 25-28 minutes, until brown.

Upside Down Peach Cobbler

• 6 T. butter/coconut oil – put in baking pan and melt
• 1 c. flour (use gluten free mix to make gluten free)
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 t. baking powder
• 1/4 t. salt
• 3/4 c. milk/coconut milk

Mix the batter ingredients in the order listed. Pour the batter on top of the hot melted butter/oil in the pan. Top this batter mixture with the peach filling, including the juices. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celcius for 38 – 40 minutes.

I made two 9 x 13 pans of this one as well, but didn’t take a picture. The batter mixture rises up through the peaches. It’s a different kind of recipe than the first cobbler; my family liked them both and didn’t have a preference for one or another. By the way, serving any of these hot with vanilla ice cream is so, so good.

—————————–

I don’t buy gluten free flour mixes, so I looked up a recipe and mixed up my own. I used a combination of white rice flour, millet flour and potato starch. (I have a grain grinder so this was the work of just a few minutes to whiz them up.) This worked great for the cobbler recipes but was too dry when used for Yirmi’s birthday cake.

---

I had some more ripe peaches and though my children wouldn’t mind daily fresh pans of peach cobbler exiting the oven, I keep foods like this for a treat. The season that peaches are very affordable isn’t usually very long, so I decided to can whatever peaches I had that had a soft spot or two that would lead them to spoil.

Though I prefer to minimize sugar, my first batch of cooked nectarines really wasn’t good. As compote it would have been perfect, but I had added lemon juice as a preservative for canning it sugar-free, and that took away the sweetness. I probably added too much lemon juice, but I can’t say for sure.

What I do know is that I added a bit of sugar to the cooked fruit mixture before water bath processing them, and then it tasted great. Anyone can do water bath canning with a regular stock pot, as long as it’s high enough to cover the jars with an inch or two of water.

The above jars are a liter, which means they each hold four cups of cooked peaches, so one jar is just right for a 9 x 13 pan of cobbler or crisp.

Avivah