Aretha Franklin Was Enamored By This Southern Dessert

Legendary singer Aretha Franklin dazzled audiences for decades, winning fame around the world with her powerful, iconic voice. With all of her success, the Queen of Soul wouldn't have had to cook for herself ever again if she didn't want to, but instead, she liked whipping up meals in her kitchen. She particularly loved soul food, and one of her favorite desserts was peach cobbler.

Franklin once showed how she made the classic Southern dessert on an episode of Emeril Lagasse's former Food Network program, "Emeril Live" (via YouTube). She coached the celebrity chef as he followed her recipe, which used canned peaches and plain breadcrumbs, an unexpected addition that soaks up some of the juices and thickens the filling. Franklin liked it best served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. After her death in 2018 at age 76, her peach cobbler recipe became a trending search on Google, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Franklin shared her recipes at other times, too, including when she made another beloved sweet Southern treat, banana pudding, on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (via Facebook). She told a local Detroit TV station in 2016 that she was developing a food line based on her recipes for things like chili, gumbo, and baked chicken and dressing. This was at a time when fellow star R&B singer Patti LaBelle had done well selling her sweet potato pies at Walmart. However, there were no reports about it actually happening before she died two years later.

Fruit cobblers, which are closely related to crumbles and crisps, were created by colonial settlers in the U.S. who adapted their European pie and pudding recipes because they didn't have access to the same ingredients and couldn't use some of the same cooking techniques they were used to. The first published recipe for peach cobbler appeared in the 1839 cookbook, "The Kentucky Housewife" by Lettice Bryan.

The dessert can be made three different ways: with pie crust, which is what Aretha Franklin used with a lattice top; with biscuit dough on top, made even easier with canned biscuits; or with batter poured in a baking dish. For peach cobbler, the fruit should be ripe and peeled before slicing. However, you could also leave the skin on, or fire up the grill for a smoky twist. Thawed frozen peaches and the canned, drained fruit can be used to save time, if you can't find them fresh, or if you just prefer their taste and/or consistency. The fruit can also be mixed with sugar and warm spices or just with lemon juice. Once baked, possible toppings beyond ice cream include whipped cream, caramel sauce, and toasted nuts.

The dessert has its own National Peach Cobbler Day on April 13th. The Georgia Peach Council was behind the drive to establish it in the 1950s, when they were trying to sell the canned fruit. It chose the mid-April date because it's before fresh peaches are in season, when people might turn to the shelf-stable version instead.