Smoked Strawberry Peach Cobbler

5 from 1 vote

Smoked Strawberry Peach Cobbler is the ultimate summer dessert. Juicy fruit, golden biscuits, and smoky flavor all in one dreamy skillet treat.

Prep Time20

Cook Time50

Total Time1 10

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: people

Author: Gaby Dalkin

Ingredients

7 cups fresh strawberries hulled and halved
4 cups fresh peaches cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup white sugar
4 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste or extract
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoon fresh orange juice
¼ teaspoon kosher salt

For the Biscuit Topping

2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
½ cup white sugar
2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
7 tablespoon cold butter cut into small pieces
1 cup buttermilk plus more for brushing
¼ cup turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)

To serve:

vanilla ice cream or whipped cream

Instructions

Preheat your oven (or smoker or grill set up for indirect heat) to 350 degrees F. Grease a 10 to 12-inch cast iron skillet and set aside. If using the oven, place the skillet on a rimmed baking sheet.
Rub the orange zest into the sugar until fragrant. In a large bowl, combine the strawberries, peaches, orange sugar, tapioca, vanilla, orange juice, and salt. Stir to combine and let sit for at least 10 minutes while you make the biscuit topping.
Transfer the fruit mixture to the prepared skillet.In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Using your fingers or a pastry cutter, work in the cold butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with pea-sized pieces of butter throughout. Add the buttermilk and stir just until a shaggy dough forms. Do not overmix.
Drop the dough in generous ½-cup scoops over the fruit filling. Brush the tops with buttermilk and sprinkle generously with turbinado sugar.
Bake for 45 to 55 minutes in the oven (or 50 minutes on the grill or smoker, rotating the skillet halfway through) until the biscuits are deeply golden brown and the filling is bubbling at the edges.
Rest for at least 15 to 20 minutes before serving. Top each bowl with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream and serve immediately.

Notes

Use ripe but still firm fruit for the filling. Overripe strawberries break down into mush before the biscuits finish baking, leaving you with a watery, formless filling. You want the fruit to hold some structure so every scoop has texture.
Let the tapioca sit with the fruit mixture for at least 10 minutes before baking. Quick-cooking tapioca needs time to begin absorbing the fruit juices. Skipping this rest means the thickener has not had a head start and your filling may stay too loose even after baking.
Freeze the butter for 15 minutes, then grate it directly into the dry ingredients. Grated frozen butter distributes evenly through the flour without the friction of cutting or pressing, which would warm it. Cold fat creates steam pockets during baking that produce flaky, layered biscuits.
Stop mixing the biscuit dough the moment it looks shaggy. Overworking the dough develops gluten and melts the butter, resulting in tough, dense biscuits instead of tender ones. A few dry streaks in the bowl are completely fine.
Preheat your smoker or grill fully before the skillet goes in. Placing the cobbler into an environment that has not reached a stable 350 degrees F means uneven heat from the start, which can leave biscuits undercooked on the bottom and overbaked on top. Give it a full 15 minutes to stabilize.
Use a cast iron skillet and get it greased before you mix your filling. Cast iron retains and distributes heat evenly, which helps the fruit filling bubble and thicken at the same rate the biscuits brown on top. Greasing ahead of time means you are not scrambling with sticky hands when the dough is ready.
Brush the biscuit tops with buttermilk right before they go into the smoker, not before. Buttermilk applied too early gets absorbed into the dough surface and loses its browning power. Applied just before cooking, the sugars and proteins in the buttermilk caramelize into a deep golden crust.
Rotate the skillet halfway through the cook time. Both smokers and grills have hot spots, especially near vents or burners. Rotating 180 degrees at the halfway mark ensures the biscuits brown evenly rather than getting scorched on one side.
Do not skip the raw sugar sprinkle on top of the biscuits. Sugar in the raw has larger crystals that do not fully dissolve during baking, leaving a crackly, textured crust on the biscuit tops that contrasts beautifully with the soft interior.
Let the cobbler rest for at least 15 minutes after pulling it from the heat. The tapioca-thickened filling continues to set as it cools. Cutting in immediately gives you a runny, soupy scoop. The wait is painful but the payoff is a filling that holds together on the plate.
If baking in a standard oven, place the skillet on a rimmed baking sheet. Fruit fillings bubble aggressively at 350 degrees F and can drip onto the oven floor and burn. A sheet pan underneath catches overflow and saves you from scrubbing the oven afterward.
Add the orange zest to the sugar and rub them together before mixing into the fruit. Rubbing zest into sugar releases the citrus oils directly into the granules, which then distribute that bright orange flavor more evenly throughout the entire filling instead of clumping in one spot.

Nutrition (estimated)