Honeyed Bourbon Peach Shortcake

This recipe for Peach Shortcake piles sweet, bourbon-soaked peaches on a buttery shortcake biscuit and tops them with a dollop of homemade whipped cream. Make your peaches proud with this boozy, from-scratch peach shortcake that is a Southern summertime classic.

My dishwasher bit the dust.

This is a doomsday scenario for messy bakers like me and 2020’s already bringing more doom than I can handle. Of all the crazy things to strike this year, not having a dishwasher is the one doing me in.

Hand washing dishes is a headache. No, I take that back because calling it a headache minimalizes the pain. Park me at a sinkful of baked on, caked on pans and I get a Palmolive-grade migraine. I’m not joking, it literally makes my brain hurt. Cleaning dishes isn’t my calling in life instead I tend to find more joy in dirtying them.

To make the most of this toilsome chore, I’ve taken to playing Jenga with the the air drying dishes. Today I lost. Not only the the game but also the work bowl for my food processor after it nosedived off the counter and cracked. Yesterday it was a glass sugar canister that didn’t survive. The day before, my mermaid coffee mug.

If you’re keeping score of things that have broken this week we’re up to four: the dishwasher, the work bowl, the canister and a coffee mug. Of course, the mayhem is not contained to my kitchen. So far this summer the Maytag repairman has been here three times for a dryer that won’t dry, the Kubota mechanic can’t fix our lawnmower and my mailbox looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa because my husband ran into it with his boat trailer.

Now that we’ve established the only luck I have is bad, let’s focus on the broken item that pangs me the most: my food processor. Why? Because August is that magical, late summer month when peach season is in its prime. For weeks, I’ve waited on the peach crop to get perfectly ripe and juicy just so they could be the star of my shortcake. It figures now that those fuzzy fruits are at their peak, I’m deficient a food processor for making shortcake. Instead of sweating it, I’m skipping the daunting dough prep steps and taking the easy way out with drop biscuits.

In the interest of full disclosure, I recently made a drop biscuit recipe that called for grating a frozen stick of butter like a block of cheese. Grating is fun as long as you don’t lose a finger so I gave it a go. Basically, making shortcake biscuits that way was a cinch. And, apparently, too good to be true because my son took one bite, spat it out and accusatorially informed me it was cold and hard.

Like his heart.

Just kidding. He’s actually very sweet, he just has no tact when it comes to criticizing my baking skills. Or any of my other skills he likewise finds lacking. Over the years I’ve built up an immunity to his frankness, which is why I took his cold hard feedback into consideration and made today’s drop biscuits with melted butter instead of icy grates.

I finally did something right because this recipe is a keeper. The buttermilk biscuits are crisp and buttery on the outside, tender and flaky on the inside and especially delicious with honeyed bourbon peaches and a heaping dollop of homemade whipped cream.

With a hint of bourbon in every bite, this peach shortcake is so flavorful that if Jim Beam came back to life and tasted it for himself he wouldn’t be able to wipe the smile off his reincarnated face.

Before sharing the recipe for Peach Shortcake, here are a few tips and tricks to help you out:

Ingredient Tips and Tricks

Ripe, juicy peaches make all the difference with this recipe and late summer is the best time to get your hands on the best of these fuzzy fruits.

Look for peaches that are a bit soft when squeezed and yellow orange in color. Avoid brown spots, bruises and peaches that are particularly fragrant because those tend to be overripe.

I would also steer clear of frozen peaches for this recipe because frozen fruits have a tendency to turn mushy after thawing.

Don’t even think about substituting store-bought canned peaches for fresh because that’s sacrilegious. We’re not using peaches from a can, we’re not using canned biscuits peddled by that giggly doughboy and we’re certainly not using nitrous oxide propelled whipped cream from a can, either. 

Preparation Tips and Tricks

Only mix biscuit ingredients together until the dough is just moistened. This helps them bake up light and fluffy. 

The peaches for this shortcake recipe can be prepared peeled or unpeeled. Your choice.

To prevent sogginess, wait until ready to serve before topping shortcake biscuits with the honeyed bourbon peaches.

Storage and Freezing Tips for Peach Shortcake

Unbaked shortcake biscuits can be made up to 3 months in advance and stored in the freezer. Simply freeze unbaked drop biscuits on a baking tray until set then transfer to an airtight container. When you’re ready to use, there’s no need to thaw just pop frozen biscuits straight in the oven.

I hope you enjoy this recipe for Peach Shortcake. Please leave a comment and a rating at the bottom of this blog post when you try it for yourself. And, while you’re at it, sign up for my Recipe Newsletter so you never miss a tempting recipe.

Finally, if you like shortbread as much as you like shortcake check out my recipe for Lemon Blueberry Shortbread Bars. They’re a refreshing treat featuring a thick, tangy curd bursting with fresh blueberries atop a buttery shortbread cookie crust.