Nectarine-Raspberry Cobbler With Ginger Biscuits

By David Tanis

Total Time: 1½ hours
Rating: 4(311)
Notes: Read community notes

A cobbler is a traditional baked dish of sweetened fruit with a biscuit-dough topping. It’s best to bake the fruit untopped for a half-hour or more before adding the raw disks of dough — some say they look like cobblestones — and baking them for another 15 minutes. It is the ideal home dessert, all bubbly fruit and golden crisp. This particular biscuit dough is studded with pistachios and candied ginger. Let it cool a bit before serving, with whipped cream, crème fraîche or ice cream.

Featured in: Step Aside, Peaches: Nectarines Make a Bid for Best Cobbler Filling

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Ingredients

Yield:10 to 12 servings

For the Biscuits

3cups/385 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
¼cup/50 grams granulated sugar
2teaspoons baking powder
2teaspoons baking soda
½teaspoon salt
4tablespoons/55 grams cold unsalted butter (½ stick), cut into small cubes
¼cup/28 grams coarsely chopped pistachios
1cup/170 grams candied ginger, diced small, about pea-size
2eggs, beaten
1cup/240 milliliters heavy cream or half-and-half, plus more for brushing tops
1tablespoon granulated sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

For the Filling

10cups/about 1 kilogram thickly sliced pitted nectarines (8 to 10 nectarines)
¾cup/165 grams light brown sugar
Zest and juice of 1 small lemon (about 2 to 3 tablespoons)
¼teaspoon grated nutmeg
¼cup/30 grams all-purpose flour
2pints/490 grams raspberries

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

Step 1
Heat oven to 375 degrees. In large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together, then add butter pieces and work into flour mixture with fingers or fork until mixture looks like moist sand. Stir in pistachios and candied ginger.
Step 2
Combine eggs and cream and pour over flour mixture, stirring briefly until dough comes together. Turn dough out onto a work surface lightly dusted with flour. Knead dough for a minute or so, then wrap and refrigerate.
Step 3
Make filling: Add nectarine slices, brown sugar, lemon zest and juice and nutmeg to a large mixing bowl. Toss with your hands, to ensure seasoning is distributed well. Sprinkle with flour and toss one more time. Fold in raspberries, taking care not to smash them.
Step 4
Transfer fruit mixture to a 9-by-13-inch baking dish, cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes, until fruit and juices are bubbling.
Step 5
Meanwhile, roll out dough to a rough rectangle about ¾-inch thick. Using a 3-inch biscuit cutter or a water glass whose rim has been dipped in flour, cut out as many biscuits as possible. Roll out scraps, and continue cutting out rounds until you have 12 biscuits. Place biscuits rounds on a plate, and refrigerate them for a few minutes.
Step 6
Remove baked fruit from oven and arrange biscuit rounds evenly over the top. Brush each biscuit with about 1 teaspoon cream and sprinkle with a pinch of sugar.
Step 7
Bake, uncovered, for 12 to 15 minutes, until biscuits are well browned. Let cool slightly before serving.

Ratings

4 out of 5

311 user ratings

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Private Notes

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Cooking Notes

Nigel Hampstead5 years ago

I have been making cherry/peach/plum cobbler for 30 yrs. I make the biscuits in batches, since it’s the most time consuming and messy part. I 1/2 bake them, and freeze them. Then, making a cobbler is just fruit in a baking dish for 20-30 minutes, topped with the frozen biscuits for another 15 -20 minutes. With a stash of frozen biscuits, you can make any size cobbler. Even just for 1 person.

MJWStyle5 years ago

Delicious mixing nectarines with peaches if you’ve got those laying around! My boyfriend dislikes ginger so I used some candied lemon and orange pieces-this works too!

Jen5 years ago

I always pre-cook my fruit in cobblers, so that the topping goes onto hot fruit. However, to speed things up, I do so in the microwave! In a large Pyrex bowl, I heat the mixture for 3-5 minutes, stirring every minute or so, until the fruit mixture is bubbling and warm. This works really well, and means that I can have cobbler much more quickly--never a bad thing!

Becky Swaffield5 years ago

I like the cobbler recipe from Cook's Illustrated. The topping is drop biscuits - so much easier and no waste. If I'm making just biscuits, I cut them in squares instead of rounds. Again, no waste. I will try the crystallized ginger as shown in the recipe above next time.

Chef Yvette5 years ago

I would modify this recipe by omitting the flour (biscuit) and baking soda topping and substituting a nutty granola that you mix with fingers to incorporate the butter. After the fruit has baked for 20 minutes and is bubbly, press together streusel clumps of buttery granola topping and sprinkle over fruit. You don’t need the brown sugar on already sweet nectarines and berries, but if you must, one or 2 Tbs sugar will do. Summer desserts must showcase their own sweet-tartness, w/o heavy additions

JB5 years ago

What you're describing sounds more like a "crisp" than a "cobbler". Isn't a cobbler topping by definition biscuit-like?

Nancy5 years ago

I agree, JB. That is not a cobbler Yvette is describing, it's a crisp.

Kit5 years ago

Terribly, TERRIBLY YUMMY! Ya gotta have it with ice cream......or not. But ya gotta make this. Might consider even making the ginger biscuits solo. Didn't have the pistachios, but don't let that stop you. Was a "keeper" by all in the dinner party of 6.

Jennifer5 years ago

This is wonderful. In my batch, the dough was very wet so I had to add about another cup of flour. Also, I made the biscuits with one stick of butter rather than a half stick. I made this with nectarines and blueberries. Yes, the blueberries color the nectarines, but the combination is heavenly. It does not age well and the biscuits get soggy by the second day. Plan to eat the whole thing, or share it with neighbors, the first day it is made. This makes an impressive dessert.

Vicki Cohn5 years ago

I was very disappointed with this recipe. I cooked the biscuits, which were pretty good, separately. Normally I never add flour to any fruit pie-type desserts but I gave in this time and that was a mistake; the fruit was very gloppy. Also, I did not think the nutmeg worked well with the fruit. Roasting the fruit on its own with a bit of sugar for 15 minutes and serving it hot or cold with or without cream, would have been wonderful.

Kendra1 year ago

This was so good! I made with peaches and blackberries but otherwise didn’t change. Great presentation, makes a lot, perfect for a summer gathering.

DS1 year ago

Used walnuts instead of pistachios

Lynda H.2 years ago

Good point that this would not "age" well as the biscuits get soggy. But the recipe was too much for us to eat in one sitting (and sharing food is still a concern for some people during the pandemic). So I made Roasted Nectarine-Raspberry Shortcakes with Ginger Biscuits. Perfect--as were the leftovers.

mspd3 years ago

Use 1 stick of butter instead of 1/2 stick

Marguerite3 years ago

If I cooked this again I would use twice the butter and weigh the flour rather than measure it. The cup measurement turned out batter that was very wet, presumable not enough flour. Also, a note to those who had blue-gray color in spots in the biscuits after cooking: It is not the pistachios, because I left them out. It is the ginger. Beware, because candied ginger can have lead (color is blue/gray) in it due to the brining process

Marguerite3 years ago

This is not a reliable recipe for the biscuits. I should have guessed that 2 tsp of baking soda would be tasted in the final product. it is too puffy and too soda-y. I measured very carefully and the dough was so wet and sticky that I had to add flour on the board more than is ideal. The chilling in the refrigerator before rolling solved it. But it had poor taste, was very cake-y rather than buicuit-y. The ginger was not that interesting. Too much work for an inferior product.

Dr.O.4 years ago

After reading others notes, I made this wonderful cobbler but followed the suggestions of: 1 stick of butter, no ginger, no pistachios (added pecans) and no flour, but cornstarch (2T) in the fruit mix. Thank you for all the suggestions and the recipe; oh, I added 1/4C of rum to the fruit mix. You couldn’t taste it but it added a depth of flavor; after baking twice, there’s no alcohol left. I know others will proclaim that I just made up my own recipe, but isn’t that what a good cook does?

Katie4 years ago

I doubled the recipe but only used one recipe’s with of sugar in the fruit, which was plenty. I was short on candied ginger so added some freshly grated ginger to the biscuits. I also cut my biscuits into rectangles to avoid wasting the yummy dough! Because my biscuits were quite close together and I can’t stand doughy topping, I baked about twice as long with the biscuit topping as recommended. Turned out delicious and was a hit with everyone at the party!

Kirsten Lagatree4 years ago

Would it be blasphemy to substitute about a 1/3 cup of the flour with cornmeal? I love that texture in other cobblers I've made from this site!

James4 years ago

A question! I love this recipe, and have made it several times. The last time, however, after it cooked there were weird striations of... green on the biscuit, maybe from the juice seeping into the dough when cooking. Or is it the pistachio reacting weirdly to... raspberry? Peach (used peach this time)? Anyone have a Diagnosis: Murder explanation for what kind of looks like mold green? And no, it's not mold. T'hanks!

lgc4 years ago

Disappointing on many levels. The flour with the fruit left a gluey taste. I loved the ginger in the biscuits, but the bits of pistachio weren't a welcome addition. They didn't add much flavor and didn't pair well with the crumb of the biscuit. Also way too much baking soda! If it weren't for the ginger, that's all I would have tasted.

Jody Legendre4 years ago

This is not an informational note but a question., and those of you who bake no doubt know the answer immediately. Can I make these biscuits for the topping with the gluten-free flour I can buy at my market? I have not studied the label too closely, but I believe it’s a combination of almond flour, perhaps rice flour, maybe spelt.... I see all these recipes for desserts w wonderful summer fruits and I get so sad. I want to make and enjoy them too!

Diane4 years ago

Yes you can usually substitute 1:1. The gluten free blend I use can be easily substituted

Betsy4 years ago

Sometimes I’ll add lemon and/or orange zest, for brightness and to taste, to a cobbler biscuit dough.

Cher5045 years ago

I thought there was too much going on with the ginger and pistachios in the topping. Nectarines/raspberry filing was great. Next time I'd do a drop biscuit cobbler topping.

sbsidhu5 years ago

This it was a hit! The fruits in this dish are the front and center so the quality of your starting materials definitely matters. I made 2 adjustments: 1) substituting hazelnuts for pistachios 2) I rolled out the biscuit dough to the correct thickness and used my bench scraper to nudge it into a rectangle. Then I divided it into 12 rectangular biscuits. Turned out great but I had to extend the 2nd cooking time by ~ 15 mins and change to the convection setting during this additional bake time.

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