This Peach Cobbler with Buttermilk Biscuits is everything you want in a late-summer dessert: sweet, juicy peaches bubbling underneath fluffy, buttery biscuits with crisp golden tops. Serve it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and let it melt right into all those syrupy peach juices. Summer dessert perfection!
This recipe feels particularly special to me because the peaches you see here came straight from my own peach tree. There is something incredibly rewarding about watching fruit grow in the garden all season and then walking outside, picking ripe peaches, and turning them into dessert.
And when peaches are this fresh and flavorful, I don’t want to hide them under an overly sweet or complicated recipe. This cobbler keeps the peaches front and center, with just enough lemon and honey to enhance their natural sweetness and a homemade buttermilk biscuit topping for that irresistible buttery contrast.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Fresh peaches are the star. The filling is juicy, fruity and not overly sweet.
- Homemade buttermilk biscuits. The most uncomplicated biscuits you’ll ever make! They’re tender and fluffy underneath with beautifully golden, slightly crisp tops.
- Simple, rustic and forgiving. Cobbler isn’t supposed to look perfect, that’s part of its charm.
- Perfect for peach season. Especially if, like me, you suddenly find yourself with more ripe peaches than you know what to do with!
- That warm-and-cold combination! Warm peach cobbler + melting vanilla ice cream is hard to beat.
What Makes a Biscuit-Topped Peach Cobbler Different?
Peach cobbler can mean slightly different things depending on where you grew up. Some versions have a more cake-like batter, while others are topped with biscuits.
I’m firmly in the buttermilk biscuit camp for this recipe.
The biscuits give you something a cake-style topping doesn’t: those rustic, craggy golden tops with tender centers underneath that soak up some of the warm peach juices.You also don’t want to completely cover the fruit with biscuit dough. Leaving little openings allows the peach filling to bubble up between the biscuits as it bakes, giving cobbler its characteristic rustic appearance while preventing the topping from becoming one solid layer. That’s also a technique used in other well-tested biscuit-style cobblers.
Ingredient Notes
- Fresh peaches: Use ripe, flavorful peaches that still have enough firmness to hold their shape while baking. Extremely soft or overripe peaches can turn mushy in the oven.
- Honey: I love using honey here because it complements the natural sweetness of ripe peaches without making the filling overwhelmingly sweet.
- Fresh lemon juice: Don’t skip it. That little bit of acidity wakes up the peaches and balances their sweetness.
- Cornstarch: This is what transforms all the juice released by the peaches into that luscious, syrupy cobbler filling rather than leaving you with a watery dessert.
- All-purpose flour: The base of our homemade biscuit topping.
- Baking powder + baking soda: Baking powder provides the primary lift, while a small amount of baking soda works particularly well alongside acidic buttermilk and contributes to browning and texture. This combination is also common in tested buttermilk biscuit-style cobblers.
- Butter: We’re using butter in two places: melted in the bottom of the baking dish and again in the homemade biscuit topping.
- Buttermilk: Gives the biscuits moisture, richness and that subtle tang that works so beautifully against sweet peaches.
- Salt: A small amount makes both the buttery biscuit and sweet peach flavors taste more pronounced.
Silvia’s tips
➜ Use the baking dish, not the peach count, as your guide. I used about eight peaches, but yours may be larger or smaller. Aim to fill your dish approximately ½ to ¾ full with sliced peaches.
➜ Don’t skip the cornstarch. Those juicy summer peaches release plenty of liquid. The cornstarch helps transform it into a luscious peach sauce as the cobbler bakes and cools.
➜ Give the peaches their 10-minute head start. This was one of the changes I tested when updating the recipe and I recommend keeping it.
➜ Mix your dry biscuit ingredients before adding the liquids. This helps evenly distribute the baking powder, baking soda and salt throughout the flour.
➜ Pay attention to the butter-buttermilk measurement. Melt 2 tablespoons butter first and then add buttermilk until the combined mixture reaches ¾ cup.
➜ Don’t overmix the biscuit dough. Mix just until the flour has been incorporated. The dough doesn’t need to be perfectly smooth.
➜ Leave a little space between your biscuits. You want some of those gorgeous peach juices bubbling up around them rather than completely sealing the fruit underneath.
➜ Look beyond the timer. Your cobbler is ready when the biscuit topping is golden and cooked through and the peach filling is visibly bubbling.
➜ Let it rest before digging in. The filling will be extremely hot straight from the oven and will thicken as it sits. Give it approximately 15–20 minutes before serving.
⭐️ And then… add the vanilla ice cream.
Sweet Desserts You Need To Try Next
Looking for more summer desserts?
No! The skins soften as the peaches bake. If you’re sensitive to the texture of peach skin or your particular peaches have thicker skins, you can certainly peel them first. It won’t affect the recipe either way.
Fresh peaches are my first choice, particularly when they’re in season.
You can use frozen peaches when fresh aren’t available, but because frozen fruit can release additional water as it cooks, I recommend thawing and draining them well first.
Technically you can, but this recipe was developed around fresh peaches, and that’s how I think it tastes best. Canned peaches are already cooked and can also contain added sugar depending on how they’re packed, so they’ll produce a softer and potentially sweeter cobbler.
For the flavor and texture intended here, stick with fresh peaches whenever possible.
I haven’t tested this updated biscuit topping with gluten-free flour, so I can’t confidently recommend a specific substitution yet.
Because the biscuit topping is an important part of this recipe, I’d rather tell you when I’ve actually tested a gluten-free version than suggest a swap that may not give you the same results.
I prefer this cobbler freshly baked, particularly because that’s when the buttermilk biscuits are at their best.
If you’d like to get a head start, you can slice the peaches and measure the dry biscuit ingredients separately. I would wait to combine the butter and buttermilk with the dry ingredients until you’re ready to bake.
Once that biscuit dough is mixed, assemble the topping and get your cobbler into the oven.
Peach Cobbler with Buttermilk Biscuit
Ingredients
Peach Cobbler
- 8 medium peaches sliced, or enough to fill the baking dish ½–¾ full
- 2 tbsp butter melted
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp Cornstarch
- 1 lemon juiced
Buttermilk Biscuits
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp butter melted
- 1/2 cup buttermilk enough to bring the melted butter + buttermilk mixture to ¾ cup total
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Pour 2 tablespoons melted butter into the bottom of your baking dish.
- Add the sliced peaches. Sprinkle with cornstarch, drizzle with honey and add the fresh lemon juice. Toss gently until the peaches are evenly coated.
- Bake the peach filling for 10 minutes while you prepare the biscuit topping.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and sea salt.
- Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a ¾-cup liquid measuring cup. Add buttermilk directly to the melted butter until the combined mixture reaches the ¾-cup line.
- Pour the butter-buttermilk mixture into the dry ingredients and gently mix just until combined. Avoid overmixing.
- Carefully remove the hot peaches from the oven. Drop portions of biscuit dough over the peaches, leaving some small spaces between them so the peach filling can bubble through.
- Return the cobbler to the oven and bake for 35 minutes or until the biscuits are golden and cooked through and the peach filling is bubbling around them.
- Allow the cobbler to rest for 15–20 minutes before serving warm with vanilla ice cream.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
HI there,
Wondering if one could make this recipe with a lighter gluten item such as oat or buckwheat flour?
thanks,
Angie
Hi Angie,
I have never made a gluten-free version of biscuits and from what I know is a little tricky. What you could probably do is to substitute the biscuit for a oat based top with oats, brown sugar, butter, and gf flour, much like an apple crisp style but “peach crisp”. Hope this helps!