Return of the World-Famous Pearch Cobbler

So I have this recipe for peach-pear cobbler. It started as a recipe that I just found somewhere for basic peach cobbler, and has been modified in various ways over the years. For a long time, it was my default offering at barbecues, potlucks, holiday dinners and the like, and a favorite on the home-front as well, even (especially) with the notoriously picky, notoriously sweet-tooth-lacking Eric. When I planned to bring it to his family Thanksgiving, he told his mother (apparently seriously) that it was a special cobbler, "made with only the pear part of the peaches." I don't know what the hell he was talking about, it just has peaches and pears in it, but it's evolved to be known as Pearch Cobbler, as it was noted on the list of Thanksgiving attendees and their food that year.


Well, I moved 10 months ago, in the beginning of January, and...horror of horrors, the recipe was lost.


Perhaps not lost lost, but theoretically boxed up in the garage somewhere. I went out there and nosed around looking for it again and again, to no avail. Someone asked me to kindly locate the damn cobbler recipe about monthly, often more. Sometimes they would gang up on me, make cobbler demands en masse, demanding the cobbler with mob-like intensity. I couldn't find the recipe.


Well, I cleaned out the garage last weekend, and holy cannoli I found the recipe. There was singing and rejoicing, and that actually is not an exaggeration - I heard from one person an original song with "cobbler is coming" as the jaunty chorus, and from another remix of the Foreigner song, "I've been waiting, for some cooobb-ler, to come into my life." It was insanity.


So I made the cobbler tonight, and oh, it was delicious.


Make it at your own risk, and then put the recipe in a safe place.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar, divided
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 3 generous cups peeled, sliced peaches and pears (canned works just fine, and in that case, use roughly one big can each)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Caramel sauce (optional)

Preheat the oven the 350 degrees.

Melt the butter in a 9x13 inch baking dish. Margarine is sufficient but it doesn't keep quite as well as real butter beyond the first day, so use your own judgement.

Sift together the flour, 1 cup of the sugar, the baking powder, and the salt.

Blend with the milk.

Pour the batter over the melted butter.

Spread the fruit over the batter. (Drained, if it's canned.)

Combine the remaining 1 cup sugar and cinnamon.

Sprinkle over the fruit.

Drizzle a little caramel sauce over all of it - not mandatory, but it adds an extra something to it.

Make for 50-60 minutes, or until a crust appears. I speed-baked it once to accommodate another thing in the oven, and it can be cooked at 400 degrees for about 30-35 minutes. It turns out slightly better the original way, but only slightly.

Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.