There’s something exciting and suspenseful about inverting your handmade dessert, whether it’s a sophisticated apple tarte Tatin, a powerful pineapple-ringed upside-down cake, or a saucy flan.
You could flip any of these acrobatic meals over and serve them as is. However, the dramatic surprise is what really elevates the fruit to its rightful place in the spotlight.
Traditional peach cobbler is combining chopped peaches with sugar and sometimes some butter before covering the dish with biscuit dough circles and baking. The simple simplicity of the cobbler, which is served by spooning it out of the baking dish and into bowls, is part of its appeal. No matter how tasty it is, the peaches are lost in the sauce.
But with a little caramel and a fancy flip, you’ve got a sweet that’s sure to get rave reviews.
The time spent cooking the caramel is what makes this dish so exceptional. Here, caramelising the sugar modifies the fruit’s sweetness and adds subtle and pleasingly bitter undertones. If the sugar crystallises and clumps when you add the fruit, don’t worry about it. When cooked with the other ingredients, it will melt and concentrate the peach juices, making them even more flavorful.
Rather of being like a crisp-crusted Tatin, this cobbler is more like an upside-down cake with wonderfully crispy edges, as the biscuits get golden brown on top while remaining soft and pillowy below. The biscuit dough may be made in advance, even for a few days, making it a perfect meal for a gathering.
Wait at least 10 to 15 minutes after baking to flip the cobbler onto a serving plate. This allows the caramel to set and the biscuits to absorb it deliciously. But if you wait too long, the caramel will harden and the fruit will stick to the pan. (If it does, pull off the stuck peaches and set them carefully back on top of the biscuits.)
This upside-down cobbler, like traditional cobblers, tastes best when served with a scoop of ice cream, yoghurt, or a drizzle of heavy cream. Don’t hide the fruit that has worked so hard to get to the top.
