Peach Cobbler

Ingredients

• For the fruit
• 900 g peaches, firm-ripe; skin on or off, sliced
• 60 g sugar
• 1 lemon, juice only
• 1 pinch ground cinnamon
• For the batter (melted-butter method)
• 60 g unsalted butter, melted in the baking dish
• 120 g plain flour
• 150 g sugar
• 240 ml whole milk
• 1 tsp baking powder
• To serve
• 4 portions vanilla ice cream, served cold alongside the warm cobbler

Method

1. 1
   Heat the oven to 190°C. Place the butter in a deep baking dish and set it in the oven until the butter is fully melted and beginning to foam at the edges. Remove the dish.
2. 2
   Combine the sliced peaches with the sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Toss to coat. The fruit should smell fragrant and glisten with released juice but hold its shape — this is a firm-ripe peach, not a cooked one.
3. 3
   Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and milk into a thin, smooth batter. Pour the batter directly over the melted butter in the dish. Do not stir. The butter will pool and marble at the edges — this is correct.
4. 4
   Spoon the seasoned peaches evenly over the surface of the batter. Do not stir. The fruit should be distributed across the top; the batter will rise around and over the fruit during baking. This is the step where the dish lives or dies: if the peaches are over-sweetened, mushy, or the batter is stirred into the fruit, the cobbler collapses into a formless mass rather than rising into a cake-like structure with fruit suspended throughout.
5. 5
   Bake at 190°C until the batter has risen around the fruit, the top is uniformly golden, and the kitchen carries the full scent of August peaches and warm butter. The fruit should be visibly bubbling at the edges of the dish.
6. 6
   Remove from the oven and allow to settle briefly. Serve warm, directly from the dish, with cold vanilla ice cream alongside. The contrast between the hot cobbler and the cold ice cream is the point of service.