Healthy Homemade Peach Cobbler– gluten free and grain free

Fresh peaches with a simple, from-scratch topping form a classic summer dessert. This sweet peach recipe doesn’t actually require much sugar to be delicious! Dripping with peach flavor, you don’t need gluten, grain, or refined sugar for this easy peach cobbler!

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Peaches are a summer delight. While they can be frozen and canned for enjoyment all year, there is nothing quite like fresh peaches. Their juicy sweetness is delectable on its own, as well as baked into a favorite summer dessert!

This healthy peach cobbler uses very little sugar, relying on the sweetness of the peaches. You also don’t need any gluten or grains to make the topping. This recipe calls for no nuts or eggs, which can help with other special dietary needs.

You can either thicken the peaches with a starch, as is typical, or follow the no-starch instructions to avoid starches, making this a pretty GAPS friendly recipe.

Does this peach cobbler taste just like traditional versions? No, not quite. Leaving out gluten and heavy quantities of sugar found in most peach cobbler recipes means this one is a bit different. But also good. And better for us than most…

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How to Make Peach Cobbler

Needless to say, the peaches are the star of this dessert. Do as well as you can to find fresh, ripe peaches. If you have a peach tree, I will try not to be jealous… Harvest them when they are ripe! If you can get peaches from a farmer’s market or farm stand, that is great too.

Depending on where you live, you may be able to get good peaches from the grocery store. Failing all that, you can use frozen or canned peaches and still have a good result.

I used about 8 peaches. They aren’t huge; about 6 cups of peaches, give or take, will be fine. You wouldn’t strictly have to peel them, especially if they were never sprayed with anything untoward, but I like the result better with peeled peaches.

The riper they are, the easier they will be to peel. You can simmer the peaches in a pot of water for a bit to make them easy to peel. Even just pouring boiling water over the peaches and letting them sit for ten minutes will make the peels come off easily.

Chop them into bite sized pieces. Typically, peaches for cobbler get a hefty dose of sugar and either flour or cornstarch at this point. Maybe some seasoning such as cinnamon or vanilla as well.

Starch Method

The starch or flour is needed to thicken the peaches, as they will release loads of juice in the oven and you will end up with too much liquid. Using flour or starch is just fine in and of itself! Do it that way if you prefer.

If you are not using gluten, you will do well using cornstarch, arrowroot, or potato starch. I don’t recommend tapioca starch for this purpose, as it can end up being kind of slimy and gummy– not appealing.

If you’d rather just use the starch, two tablespoons is about right; stir it into the fresh, chopped peaches and move them into the baking dish. When the peaches bubble, the juice will thicken nicely.

No starch method

If you are avoiding starch altogether, like for the GAPS diet, or you have run out, try this:

Simmer your chopped peaches in a pot on the stove with a tiny bit of honey and lemon juice. Keep the heat low, and start with the lid on to keep enough moisture in the pot to prevent burning. As the peaches warm, they will release lots of juice.

Take the lid off! We don’t want lots of juice that we aren’t going to thicken. If most of the liquid boils off, that is helpful.

As the peaches cook, stir so they don’t burn but do cook evenly. You can season them with a bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, vanilla, almond extract, or some combination, or you can leave them plain. This will take maybe ten minutes.

When the peaches have cooked, remove them to your baking dish. If there is a lot of liquid left, don’t put it in the baking dish. That way, you won’t end up with a mess of juice in your cobbler. You end up with just peaches, and no need to thicken.

(I stick the juice, if I have much left, in iced tea for my peach-lover.)

Make your topping

This is a simple topping. I like to make it just before I am ready to spread it over the fruit; it will thicken after a few minutes as the coconut flour absorbs liquid. It is easy to spread in a layer over the peaches right after mixing.

A few minutes after mixing, it will be much harder to spread. Coconut flour absorbs a lot of liquid! If I don’t get the topping over the peaches right away, I don’t try to spread it over them. In that case, I drop little biscuit-like blobs over them and bake it that way.

Melt the butter. Measure out the coconut flour, sour cream, honey (or use sugar), baking soda, vanilla, and a dash of salt. Mix it all together with the butter and spread over the peaches.

If you have pre-cooked the peaches, you really just need to bake the topping. It will take 10-15 minutes over hot peaches. If the peaches are still raw, you will need a little longer. Depending on how big your peach pieces are, you may need to bake 20-30 minutes.

I recommend cooling the peach cobbler a bit before serving. That is not to say that we haven’t eaten it piping hot… It is delicious on its own, and also with whipped cream, whipped coconut cream, vanilla or other ice cream, a custard sauce, or even fresh cream.

For GAPS, I would suggest the coconut cream with honey as the sweetener, whipped cultured cream, maybe with a touch of honey, or my GAPS friendly vanilla ice cream.

Questions about Peach Cobbler

Do I have to use coconut flour?

It is difficult to substitute for coconut flour. The reason is that coconut flour absorbs a lot of liquid– much more than other flours do. You could use 3-4 times the quantity of almond flour, gluten free flour blend, or something else, but it may not turn out well. The closest thing I know of would be zucchini flour, which is also a “thirsty” flour, but I haven’t tried it.

Can I use sugar in place of honey?

You can use any type of sugar you want, such as maple syrup, coconut sugar, white sugar, etc. The others are less sweet than honey, so you might want a little extra. You can also increase or reduce the amount of honey a bit.

Can I make this dairy free?

You can easily substitute coconut oil or another fat for the butter. For the sour cream, you could try a nondairy sour cream or coconut milk.

Will other fruits work?

You can use other stone fruits, berries, etc. You may or may not want to add the spices with other fruits, so do what sounds good to you!

Do I need to use the spices?

You can leave them out! I like them, so I usually use them. You could also use just half a teaspoon of each, or experiment with others. Maybe ginger, cardamom, or cloves?

Can I make a GAPS friendly peach cobbler?

If you are on full GAPS, this is do-able. Technically, you should grind your coconut flour fresh, and you should use 24-hour GAPS sour cream. Also stick with honey for the sweetener, and cultured dairy if you want a creamy topping. Cultured cream whipped with a little bit of honey is delicious!