This sourdough cobbler is a wonderfully quick and simple dessert. It is similar to a pie or a crisp, with a biscuit-based sourdough topping.
Five Fruit Flavors!
This simple sourdough cobbler is delicious with any type of fruit. Feel free to use whatever is in season. Or try one of my favorite combinations:
- Apple Pie: Use 2 1/2 lbs of fresh or frozen apples, thinly sliced or cubed. Add in 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ground cloves.
- Ginger Peach: Use 2 1/2 lbs of fresh peaches. Flavor it with 1 tsp of ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.
- Vanilla Pear: Mix 2 1/2 lbs of fresh or frozen pears flavored with the seeds from 1 vanilla pod or 2 tsp of vanilla extract.
- Mixed berries: Use 2 1/2 lbs of your favorite berries, fresh or frozen, with a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon.
- Strawberry rhubarb: Mix 1/2 lb of rhubarb with 2 lbs of strawberry. Add up to 1 cup of sugar to balance the tartness of the rhubarb.
Sourdough Cobbler toppings
The tangy fruit flavor of cobbler is even more amazing when served with a rich and creamy topping. It’s the perfect way to balance the sweet and acidic nature of the fruit!
Here are a few recommended serving options:
- Cultured whipping cream is quick, easy, and probiotic!
- Classic instant custard is perfect for a vintage-inspired dessert.
- Date-sweetened caramel sauce is delicious drizzled over apple cobbler.
- Vegan custard is a delicious dairy-free alternative
Sourdough Cobbler
Sourdough cobbler is just like a pie, only better! It is quick and simple to make with apples, pears, peaches, or berries. See the section above for five of my favorite fruit combinations. The recipe includes a quick alternative for anyone who doesn’t have a sourdough starter.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: Serves 4-6 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Sourdough
- Cuisine: Traditional
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
Fruit Filling
- 2 1/2 lbs of fruit
- 1/2 cup of brown sugar (may need up to 1 cup for tart fruit)
- Spices or other flavors (see the section above for suggestions)
Sourdough Biscuit
- 3/4 cup of flour (gluten-free or all-purpose flour, see notes)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 6 Tbsp butter (or margarine)
- 1 cup sourdough starter (see notes for an alternative)
Topping
- 2 Tbsp melted butter (or margarine)
- 3 tsp sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F (180C).
- Chop the fruit into thin slices or bite-sized pieces. Mix the fruit with the sugar and spices, and spread it out on the bottom of an 11-cup baking dish.
- Combine the flour with baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large bowl.
- Cut the butter into the flour until it is evenly distributed, like a coarse meal. I usually do this by rubbing in the butter with my fingers, but you can use a pastry knife.
- Mix in the sourdough starter to form a sticky dough. Avoid overmixing, you just need to bring the dough ingredients together.
- Top the fruit with the cobbler biscuit dough.
- Brush the top of the biscuit with melted butter, then sprinkle on some sugar.
- Bake for 40-50 minutes until the dough is cooked and the top is nicely browned.
- Serve with cream or custard.
Notes
- If you don’t have an active sourdough starter, then mix 1 cup of buttermilk with 1 cup of flour and let it sit out on the counter for 24 hours to ferment.
- This recipe also works with sourdough discard. Just make sure the discard isn’t more than a few weeks old. Otherwise, it might not taste very good.
- I usually bake this recipe with a gluten-free sourdough starter and my gluten-free flour mix.
- Feel free to replace the brown sugar with your favorite sugar alternative
. I usually use date sugar.
- For a vegan and dairy-free cobbler, replace the butter with margarine.
. I usually use Nutrition
- Calories: 288
- Sugar: 21.4g
- Sodium: 315mg
- Fat: 15.7g
- Carbohydrates: 37g
- Fiber: 2.7g
- Protein: 2g
Keywords: summer, spring, fall, winter fruit, apple, pear, peach, blueberry, strawberry, gluten free, egg-free,
My biscuit top didnt look like yours maybe the sourdough starter is different hydration It was super yummy!!
★★★★★
Great! I will admit that I make it with GF oat flour, so that might make the difference.
I made this and used my persevered Apples and home made apple sauce. My topping I dropped from a spoon turned out Amazing will make again for summer B-Days.
Great! Thanks for sharing!
Mine starter was crumbly, but I want it like yours!!! Would we add liquid to the mix if we have a crumbly dough after the starter? My starter is on the thicker side.
Yes! With sourdough, it’s always good to use your instinct. Depending on your flour, indoor humidity and hydration ratio, you may need to adjust. Enjoy!
I love that the majority of flour is from my starter. I made a mistake and added the starter before incorporating the butter so I carefully kept cutting the butter with a knife in the wet dough and still turned out great. I used fresh GA peaches and it was perfection.
★★★★★
Ooh… fresh peaches… 🙂
I have a question about the weight of the starter. Anyone who has active sourdough starter will know that a cup of it can fluctuate in weight. (When it rises/sinks) Is there a weight that you would use or just 1 cup. I am super excited to use this recipe but did not want to mess it up.
I haven’t made this by weight, however, it doesn’t need the precision of bread as it’s more of a cake-like topping. However, 1 cup of sourdough starter usually weighs around 8 oz. Good luck!
Max, I completely agree – 1 cup is very relative. Have you tried it by weight? If so, I’d love to hear what you did.
What if I only have bread flour? Will that work?
Yes! I just recommend a lower gluten flour to keep the topping cake-like. Bread flour might make it more bread-like, but that’s fine. 🙂
I love this recipe. It’s a winner and a staple at our house now. I think my family is starting to like my discard more than my fed sourdough, with sweet treats like this. 🙂 Thanks!
★★★★★
Thanks! 🙂
Hi there! I am two months on to sourdough making. I have come up with a gew challenges. One is fed versus discard. Can you use discard or do you neef a fed starter? If fed, then how long since being fed? I keep mine in the fridge, then feed it for bread, and I keep my discard separatly in another container.
It does take practice to figure out the right level of feeding and baking. I generally keep a very small sourdough starter in the fridge then feed it up right before baking. I also have a lot of sourdough recipes that call for loads of starter, so if I have too much starter then I can use it up. Your discard is probably just really hungry sourdough. (Especially since it’s only 2 months old.) If you want to use it up, give it a good feed then make some quick sourdough recipes like this one: https://www.fermentingforfoodies.com/sourdough-biscuits/ You can also make sourdough pancakes, waffles, etc. Here’s some more recipes: https://www.fermentingforfoodies.com/category/types-of-ferments/sourdough/ Cheers!
Here is baking powder in the recipe but the instructions do not have it being added anywhere. Should this be added with the baking soda?
Yes! Oops, I will edit that today. 🙂
My dough came out a biscuit consistency. Should it have been more cake batter like instead? I just put it back n the oven.
It is a biscuit dough… so biscuit-like is good! However, it should be cooked through (test with a toothpick). Enjoy!
Emilie, do you roll this out or drop by spoonful on fruit mixture? Yours looks so nice and smooth as if rolled. Biscuit dough tends to be bumpy or lumpy.
I will admit mine is more smooth because it’s GF! 🙂 Gluten dough will be thicker and bumpier. In general, I drop it from the spoon over top of the fruit. For the picture, I used an oat-based sourdough and spent a little more time smoothing it out. Cheers!
Just made this with sourdough discard, rhubarb and vegan butter and WOW it is so delicious! I added ginger and cardamom to spice it up and I’m obsessed with the texture of the topping – kind of custardy where its absorbed the sugary rhubarb bottom but crisp on top. Thanks for the great recipe!
Thanks!
I made this recipe last night with peaches and it was AMAZING. I used a square pan. I rolled it out like the picture but mine wasn’t quite as pretty lol. I topped with home made whipped topping. I used regular all purpose flour because they all I had. The topping was SO good.
★★★★★
Thanks!
My dough was made with all purpose flour and a more liquid starter just out of the fridge. It was very wet. The end result was similar to an upside down peach cake. It could not have been any tastier especially since I put a small scoop of peach ice cream on top. Such a treat with minimal effort.
★★★
Great! Interesting how the consistency changed with a more liquidy starter.
Love this recipe! I’ve used it many times now and it’s always delicious. My family loves it.
★★★★★
Thanks!
This recipe is FABULOUS-I used a whole stick of butter in the dough and ended up adding a little more discard. I did this so the dough came together enough for me to kind of shape it with my hands into a rectangle, then I draped it over the fruit (I did a mixture of blackberries and peaches tossed with just a tablespoon or two of white sugar and a little grenadine). Then I drizzled the top of the dough with maybe a tablespoon of melted butter and sprinkled with sugar. It was perfectly baked at 40 minutes. Thank you for a wonderful way to use up discard! This is the best cobbler I’ve ever made!
★★★★★
Thanks!
I’m wondering about how the biscuit is added on top of the fruit, it is rolled out? Dropped by spoonful?
I generally drop the dough on in spoonfuls then spread it out with the back of the spoon. If your dough is stiff enough to roll, then feel free to do that. Enjoy!
Thanks for sharing this recipe. I made one change to the oil and use apple sauce instead. The end result was delicious and oil free. Thanks a lot.
★★★★★
Great suggestion! Thanks.
I love this recipe. I use traditional flour and cold plant butter for a biscuit topping, or if you melt the butter (don’t over mix) you get more of a thick pancake with a smooth top. Love it both ways, FYI.
★★★★★
Thanks for sharing!
Might be the best Apple Cobbler I’ve ever made!! For Real, I just ate half the pan. So good, and I’ve always got Sourdough Discard yo use. My new favorite recipe ❤️❤️❤️
★★★★★
Thanks!
The was a delicious recipe. However, I think maybe you need to add a little flour to the fruit before baking in order to thicken the juices. When mine was done it was more like a yummy biscuit floating on a deep lake of juice. I mean there was so.much.juice. I love juice. But this was a few cups worth of juice and it was the consistency of water (or juice!), not thickened at all. Having said that, it was still tasty. Next time (and there will be a next time because, as I said, the flavor was delish) I will sprinkle the fruit with a few tablespoons of flour before baking. (I used a mixture of fresh berries and apples.)
★★★★
Hum… interesting, I’ve never had that much liquid. But adding a few tablespoons of cornstarch to the fruit probably will help!
All your recipes look wonderful. am looking for an answer regarding substituting sourdough discard instead of sour cream. Is that possible? There are so many really good recipes calling for sour cream and not using any milk or water. Can I somehow incorporate the discard into these recipes? You appear to be quite knowledgeable about sourdough starter/discard recipes. Have a super day.
Hi Nina,
Sourdough discard is fairly different from sour cream. You could certainly use it instead of sour cream in a recipe… but you would need to adjust for the differences. The discard basically adds flour and water to a recipe. The loss of sour cream means less fat. The overall acidity should be the same, but you’ll have to make other adjustments. There are loads of recipes using sourdough discard… is there something you’re particularly interested in?
Hi,
I enjoyed making and eating this cobbler, thank you. Can I add sugar to the biscuit recipe? I used GF wholemeal bread flour so think made it taste so very savoury and in need of being sweeter. (With a white flour it’s prob sweeter tasting). Thanks again, yum x
Doh! Ignore me, just realised my mistake. I didn’t put sugar in with the fruit. That’s cooking with a toddler for you. Thanks very much, I’ve show horned some in to the cooked dish and perfect sweetness now
I’ve been there! However, I was going to say, you could add sugar to the topping! I’m not a sweet tooth, so there’s usually room for more sugar in my recipes. Enjoy!
I made this with bread flour and used about a total of 1/4c of maple syrup instead of the sugar and it was so so so good! I split the syrup and put some into the apples and some into the biscuit batter – it came out more like an apple cake. I also used one part butter and one part syrup for the topping at the end. It will definitely be a new regular for us!
★★★★★
Maple syrup is a delicious swap! Thanks for sharing!
I just made this with organic frozen berries and gluten free flour, and it turned out so well! My new favorite cobbler. Thank you!
★★★★★
Thanks!
I haven’t made this yet, but found your site while googling “sourdough peach cobbler.” I clicked on it because it looked so delicious. When I make sourdough baked goods, I like to ferment the dough at least 7 hours (if there is egg in it, I refrigerate) so all the flour gets fermented for better digestion. Can I make the dough and leave out for that time, then top fruit and bake? I read through the comments and didn’t see that anyone did that.
I’ve had good luck with several muffin and cookie recipes using the overnight fridge ferment method.
Yes! Feel free to do a long ferment. (Sorry it took so long to reply… I was camping. If you did it, let me know how it went!)
Excellent recipe! Made it exactly as instructions recommended with sourdough discard and peaches. Was delicious with a light flavor and not too sugary. Had it with a small scoop of vanilla custard on top. Look forward to trying the other fruit cobbler options.
Sounds delicious!
This turned out delicious! I will definitely make it again! My husband said he prefers a slightly more sweet topping so I may add some sugar to the flour mixture next time. I’m also wondering if an egg might make it more fluffy?
I should also add, I used a home-bottled apple pie filling for the fruit base.
You can definitely add an egg and sugar. It’s great to take a recipe and make it your own. Enjoy!
I made this with apples and pears, added pinches of ground clove and ginger, used half coconut oil and half grapeseed oil (no butter in the house), and whole wheat flour (no white in the house). The dough was very thick and I pulled and prodded it with my fingers to spread it over the fruit and then sprinkled a tiny, little bit of sugar on top. It was delightful!!! Excellent use of sourdough discard and a wonderful treat, to boot. Thank you so much for this recipe.
★★★★★
Glad you enjoyed it!
Sounds delicious! Do you think I can double this recipe? I need enough for a larger group. Thanks!
Definitely! Cobblers are perfect for a large group because they will still bake nicely no matter how large they are!
Curious if I could make this recipe and put it in smaller containers for single or double servings before baking?
Yes! We often make a few smaller containers so we can have multiple desserts. Unlike a cake, it pretty much cooks up the same whatever size you bake. However, I would probably keep an eye on it if you’re making 2 cups or less. That would cook more quickly. Enjoy!
Hi, i printed out the recipe and noticed that it is different than the instructions on the website: 1 c starter vs 3 cups starter, 2 1/2 lb peaches vs 7 1/2 lb, etc. I ended up following the recipe on the website and not the print version. Please check that!
Also I ended up not having enough dough for the top, only about 2/3 got covered but I quickly made more since I had discard starter. Maybe my dish was slightly bigger? Anyhow I think I would like to double the dough part so the fruit is completely covered next time. Folks like the dough too! I am looking forward to tasting it. Didn’t have quite enough peaches so threw some ripe cherries in it too!
Interesting… I’ve never tried printing my recipes, so I had no idea that there might be a difference between the online version and the printed version. The recipe card is an app that I pay a yearly fee to use so they tend to be very good about responding to technical issues. It seems like the printed version is displaying the 3x recipe (it’s a button you can select on the card). I’ll drop them a line to see why that may have happened. If you want to double the dough, you can use the button for the 2x version. 🙂
Peaches and cherries sound delicious! Enjoy!
Very nice! This is going to become a standard way to use up my discard.
One thing – I used a combination of peaches, blueberries, and blackberries, and my base was rather thin. I’ll add a T of cornstarch next time.
★★★★★
Those are all quite moist fruit (compared to apples). A bit of cornstarch sounds like a good addition. Cheers!