Is It Better To Use Canned Or Frozen Peaches For Peach Cobbler?

A classic dessert choice, the best peach cobbler is brimming with sweet, juicy peaches under a delectable crumbly biscuit topping. This dish is ideal for summertime, when fresh peaches are perfectly plump, at their sweetest, and abound in your local grocery or farmer's market. But if you crave a taste of summer at another time of year or can't seem to find that perfectly ripe batch of fresh peaches, you're not entirely out of luck.

Canned and frozen peaches are available year-round for your pastry needs. But these two forms of the fruit are not equal. Canned peaches have essentially already been cooked. If you use these in your cobbler, note that the filling can turn out squishy and soggy. So while it's ideal to use fresh peaches for your peach cobbler, you can head to the frozen section and pick up a bag of frozen peaches instead for your homemade peach cobbler.

You may be wary of using frozen fruit in this case, as frozen fruit can make your dessert more runny, but with a few extra steps, you can make sure your peach cobbler filling maintains a good texture. You can toss the frozen peaches as is into your baking dish for your cobbler filling if you're short on time. But for peach cobbler, it's best to thoroughly thaw the peaches first. Thaw them in the refrigerator for six to eight hours, then pat them completely dry and drain as much of that extra liquid as possible. If you skip the thawing and drying, that extra liquid will melt away from the fruit while baking and could make your filling too watery.

Once you thaw and dry the frozen peaches, you can then chop them up to a size of your liking to create your cobbler filling. And while frozen fruit is better than canned for maximum nutrients and for textural purposes, if you have to end up using canned peaches, just be sure to drain the liquid first. The more liquid you drain from the can, the less of a chance the filling will go mushy.

Peaches are usually frozen at their peak ripeness to capture the freshness. Keep this in mind and try to find unsweetened frozen peaches at the store so your peach cobbler doesn't turn out too sickeningly sweet. And while store-bought frozen peaches are sufficient, if you store your own fresh peaches in the summertime properly, you'll be set for the winter, with no extra manufacturing preservatives to worry about.

To freeze peaches at home, you'll want to slice them and remove the pits first. Sliced peaches will thaw quicker than whole peaches and give you less to prep when it comes time to assemble your filling. You can choose to keep the skin on or peel the peaches entirely before freezing as well. The skin should easily slip off after thawing, but if you'd like to peel them beforehand, simply drop the peaches in boiling water for just 30 seconds. After they cool off in an ice bath, the skin should come right off. So even when you crave peach cobbler after the short and sweet peach season is over, frozen peaches are there to meet your cobbler needs.