Peaches are the defining fruit in the classic Southern dessert peach cobbler.
A peach cobbler combines sliced peaches with a sweet topping that may resemble biscuit dough, cake batter, or a pastry crust. The fruit is usually baked until tender and served warm, often with ice cream or whipped cream.
Cobbler belongs to a broad family of baked fruit desserts that developed in North America. Recipes vary considerably by region and household, so “cobbler” does not describe one single topping style. The word peach identifies the traditional fruit in the best-known Southern version.
Peach cobbler is sometimes confused with peach pie. A pie is enclosed or structured by pastry crust, while a cobbler generally has a biscuit-like or irregular baked topping over the fruit.