This Cobbler Is Just Peachy

About author / Christine Gable

Culinary enthusiast; kids cuisine and slow cooking; magazine recipe developer; professional writer. Her simple recipes are great for family dinners.

Peaches. If I had to choose just one last fruit to indulge in, it would be the sun-kissed ginger-tinged sweetness of summer’s best fruit. With their chin-dripping goodness, peaches make healthy dessert delicious. It really doesn’t matter how they are prepared. Peach cobbler. Peach pie. Peach crunch. Peach coffee cake (now that’s one I’ll have to try—think pound cake layered with peach slices).

Of course, fresh, drip-down-your-chin peaches are best. But when they’re not in season, I’m reduced to buying unripe specimens in the produce department, hoping they’ll taste decent when ripe. Not always the case. I’ve had peaches that looked beautiful on the outside and surprised me with their unappealing flavor and texture once they were cut open. Then there’s the surprise of getting a non-freestone variety. Those are a few of my non-favorite peach experiences.

But thankfully they’re few and far between. So, if the fresh peaches look questionable—and depending upon how high the price is, I’ll choose canned. Canned are always my second choice to fresh, but depending upon the price and the ‘look’ of the fresh peaches, canned may in fact be my first choice. Canned peaches are reliable, they’re flavorful, and they give you the choice of heavy syrup, light syrup, or fruit juice.

Any way they’re prepared, recipes for peach desserts always catch my eye. One thing I haven’t tried very often though is making a peach delicacy in the slow cooker. So you, lucky readers, get to follow along as I delve into the wonderful world of cooking peach desserts in the slow cooker.

And that’s just in time for the upcoming peach season, which starts soon—form May through October. Whether yellow, white, red or pink, peaches are delectably sweet and fragrant. They are related to nectarines that make great take-along food in their own right since they don’t have the fuzzy skin.

The word nectarine is apparently derived from the word nectar whose original meaning is ‘drink of the gods.’ Peaches are high in vitamin A, B, manganese, and potassium. Calories are nice a low too: only 39 calories per 3.5 ounces.

You know how it is with the slow cooker—it’s important to adapt recipes to the slow, low even heat of the crockpot. For someone who is much more used to baking desserts like cobblers, crunches, and crisps in the conventional oven, making the leap has been interesting. This is the first peach cobbler I’ve made in the slow cooker—tried it out the other week when we had some friends and family over for dinner. I used canned peaches since the fresh ones did not look like they would be ripening any time soon (Just had my fingers crossed that it would turn out OK—luckily it did, and they loved it!).

I’m looking forward to hearing how you, dear readers, make desserts—especially peach desserts—in the slow cooker. How do you make a topping? How long do you leave the fruit in? Have you had success with puddings, cakes, or cobblers?

Please share more about the peach dessert successes you've discovered!

Serves/Makes: 10

• 3 cans (29 ounce size) sliced peaches, drained
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/2 cup Bisquick baking mix
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup peach nectar or juice