How do you spiff-up a peach cobbler when there are no peaches?

(Or how do you make a peach cobbler when the peaches are five months away?)

As I write this, we're well into the month of April. It hasn't snowed for several days. When the harvest comes around, and that seems distant now, we'll sell a boatload of Skillet Cobbler Mixes. Right now, we'll continue to scrape the ice off our windshields and long for those summer peaches that we drive to Utah to get.  (At 5,000 feet in Idaho, there is no dependable peach crop.)

But we long for our summer cobblers, especially peach cobblers. But that doesn't mean that we don't make do and make cobblers.

For me, frozen peaches make as fine of a peach cobbler as do fresh peaches--though I do doll them up a bit. Here are 12 suggestions to make peach cobblers as fine as in the fall:

A peach cobbler with blackberries and red currant jelly, ready to go in the oven

• Use as fine of a mix or recipe as you can. We discovered our favorite peach cobbler recipe nearly 40 years ago in an old Mormon cookbook in Yellowstone National Park. We tinkered with it and finally made a mix of it, nearly 20 years ago.
• We still add goodies to our cobbler mixes. Firstly, all peach cobblers deserve a teaspoon or so of fine, sweet cinnamon--and maybe a pinch or two of nutmeg or cardamon.  
• Then it needs a teaspoon or two of good vanilla.
• Most fruit needs a sweetener.  The fruit alone isn't sweet enough. You could add sugar, or even brown sugar, but get past that with half of a jar of pomegranate jelly, maybe red currant jelly.
• A secondary fruit always improves a peach cobbler. I've added blueberries and raspberries. Blackberries work too.
• Half a can of pineapple chunks is a very nice touch.

Now, while your cobbler's still hot, what are you going to put on top? Make a cobbler sundae out of it: two scoops of vanilla ice cream, caramel topping, chopped nuts, and a bright red cherry.

If you don't want to go the ice cream route, try flavored whipped cream.  We make caramel whipped cream often:

• 2 cups heavy duty whipped cream 
• 2 teaspoons caramel flavor
• 3 tablespoons meringue powder
• 1/2 cup salted chopped nuts (optional)

Put the ingredients in your stand-type mixer and with the whip attachment, and whip the mixture until it reaches the stiff peak stage.  

The contrast of salted chopped nuts and whipped cream is fabulous.

Pile whipped cream on each serving.  

 We recommend our Skillet Cobbler Mix.