In honor of #NationalPastryDay this past Monday, I thought this one up in the middle of the night. Turns out, it worked! Try serving these at your next small event, I'm certain it'll go over well. Should it not, smash 'em all together and make a pan of cobbler-bread pudding 🤷🏽♂️. Hell, I don't know.
The flavor profile here is pretty simple, yet quite satisfying. If you're like me, and don't like foods that are overtly sweet, try 'em without the icing (even warmed up...lawd 🙌🏽💦).
You'll notice that the filling here differs from my traditional cobbler recipe in the sense that we'll definitely use corn starch as our thickening agent. This is because we want the filling to be as thick as possible without having the consistency of jam. Give it a shot! Maybe your's will be prettier than mine.
Instructions
Prep
1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Gather ingredients, a standard muffin pan, two medium-sized bowls, a small pot, a mixer (or your good arm), and your necessary measuring utensils.
Work
3. In a small pot, bring peaches to a simmer over low-medium heat; as they heat, whisk together the melted butter and corn starch
4. Combine butter mixture and all listed ingredient [for filling] into the pot, stir well and allow to simmer for nearly 10 minutes or until the syrup thickens and the peaches soften. At this stage, whisk the mixture with a bit of force, working to crush the peaches.
5. Allow to simmer 5-8 more minutes, then remove from heat.
6. Grease pan (heavily), then set it aside.
7. In one medium bowl, sift all dry ingredient (except sugar); set aside.
8. In the bowl of a mixer (or your other medium-sized bowl), cream together butter and sugar until fluffy.
9. Add egg and vanilla; mix until just combined
10. Alternate the mixing of the dry ingredient and buttermilk into your creamed butter; starting and ending with "flour"
Assembly
11. Roll-out pie dough and cut with 2" round biscuit cutter; carefully position each disk into a cup, being sure to press the bottom and sides, leaving no room for air bubbles.
12. Fill each cup (1/3 of the way; up to 2 tbsp) with -now cooled- peach filling; be careful not to over fill, you want to leave enough space within the cupped dough for your cake batter.
13. Drop (carefully, puh-leeeeaaaase) nearly 1 tbsp of batter atop the peach filling; just enough to fill the cup
14. Cover with a domed sheet of foil and bake for 15 minutes; uncover, then continue baking for 9 minutes, or until cake batter is springy to touch.
Once baked, cool cupcakes (in pan) on a cooling rack for no longer than 8 minutes (any longer, and they'll start to sweat like Wendell Pierce in that scene from Waiting to Exhale). Carefully and quickly flip them onto the cooling rack, turn them right-side up and allow to finish cooling.
They may not be the prettiest, but by George they'll be winners in your mouth. The best part about these puppies is that icing is option (how often do you the word "optional" as an adult?). Nuke 'em for about 10sec and wolf one down, or top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and you're set! If you've just got to use icing, I would advise something light and not too sweet. I used a whipped buttercream in the photos below.
