My family eats peaches once a year: when they’re ripe in Palisade or when we find a tree in the Midwest ripe for picking. That means it’s an August to October dicey adventure. Grocery store peaches don’t have the complexity of flavor or the aroma that is half the appeal. Peaches, like wild strawberries, ship so poorly that what passes for a peach today simply does not compare to the real thing we can forage from a backyard tree.
Last week I grilled a couple of Palisade peaches sans the sugar that’s typically called for to get the best caramelization. That was a bad move. Since writing the early summer feature “Sweet!” – all about sugar – I’m constantly looking for ways to cut our consumption. Sugar is needed for caramelization, but as sweet as these peaches have been, they’re not sweet enough to skip that ingredient necessary for grilling chemistry.
Recently on National Public radio I heard some alarming statistics. The average American consumes 22 tablespoons of sugar a day! Try putting that many tablespoons of what’s in your sugar bowl in a plastic baggie and you’ll practically have a bean bag. That’s roughly twenty times the amount consumed a century ago and ten times the amount we ate thirty years ago.
Of course the point of the story is that so much sugar is hidden in processed foods.
Back to Palisade peaches.
I’d be a liar if I didn’t say peach cobbler ranks pretty high in the nostalgia department. Maybe the best reason to make it at home is that you can control the amount of sugar you pour in the recipe. Most of the time that means I can cut back the amount of sugar called for, by about one third. At least that’s true when making a cobbler, but don’t try it with cupcakes or any dessert that requires form.
And you can forget about cutting sugar when you are making candy. If decreasing sugar is a part of the game, then candy can’t be on the menu.
One or two cobblers a year – to honor the fresh berries and peaches and to make that morning cup of coffee even more special, can’t hurt you. You just can’t eat this way every week.
Fifteen-Minute Peach Cobbler (takes 15 minutes to prep and bakes for an hour)
Ingredients:
3 cups peeled, sliced peaches
1¼ cup sugar, divided
1 stick butter
¾ cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup whole milk
Method:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly toss peaches in 1 cup of the sugar, then set aside. Melt butter in a 2 quart baking dish in the microwave.
In a mixing bowl combine all remaining ingredients well. Pour this over the melted butter, but don’t stir. Pour the “soupy” peaches on top of the batter and don’t stir. (The batter rises, puffs to the top and the cobbler becomes slightly crisp and brown.)
Start checking the cobbler after 50 minutes. Use your nose to know when it’s done!
This is an incredibly simple dessert, but it’s the Palisade peaches that make it hard to beat.
