Barbecued peaches on a kamado
Published 24 August 2026 · Last updated 24 August 2026 · Tested by Ben Austen · Affiliate disclosure
I’d meant to make a rhubarb crumble and the shop didn’t have any rhubarb, so I bought four peaches that looked good instead, and knew barbecued peaches would be a simple pudding to do after the barbecue. That’s really all there is to it: halve them, a little butter and brown sugar on the cut faces, three or four minutes a side on a fire that’s already done its work, and a mascarpone cream to go with.
Key takeaways
- This is a pudding for the end of a cook, not a reason to light one. The coals were spent by the time the peaches went on and the ceramic was still sitting at around 200°C, which is enough to caramelise a cut face in a couple of minutes. Lighting a barbecue from cold for eight minutes of fruit isn’t worth the fuel or the twenty-minute wait.
- The peaches decide this, not the fire. A properly ripe one gives up its stone and leaves you two clean halves; a firm one doesn’t, and nothing you do at the barbecue end gets round it. Mine looked ripe in the shop and weren’t quite, which is the easiest mistake to make and the only one that matters here.
- Six to eight minutes, start to finish. Three or four minutes cut-side down, the same again on the skin. It goes on while the plates are being cleared and it’s ready before anyone’s got up.
At a glance
| Prep time | 3 minutes — halve, stone, butter and sugar the cut faces |
| Cook time | 6–8 minutes (3–4 minutes a side) |
| Total time | About 12 minutes, with the cream whipped while the peaches are on |
| Yield | 4 peaches, 8 halves |
| Method | Kamado, direct — deflector out |
| Temperature | ~200°C dome, off the ceramic after the coals had burned down |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Equipment | A barbecue you’ve just finished cooking on, a knife, a spoon, a bowl |
| Cuisine | British |
What you’ll need
Equipment
- A barbecue that’s just finished a cook, with the grid still in and the lid able to close. I did this on my Big Green Egg Large, where the ceramic holds heat for hours after the coals have stopped glowing — but a kettle with a dying fire in it will do the same job for eight minutes, and so will a gas grill on a low burner. There’s nothing kamado-specific about the cook itself; what the ceramic gives you is heat you’ve already paid for.
- A knife and a spoon for halving and stoning.
- A bowl and a whisk for the cream, or a mixer if you’d rather.
Ingredients
Rough quantities — none of this needs weighing closely.
- 4 ripe peaches. Supermarket ones are fine; this isn’t a cook that needs anything special. Ripeness is the only thing that matters.
- 25g butter and 50g soft brown sugar for the cut faces. That’s a smear and a good pinch on each half rather than anything you’d measure.
- A 300ml pot of double cream, a pack of mascarpone, a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste and a tablespoon of icing sugar for the cream.
- Amaretti biscuits to crush over the top. I used the posh ones from Waitrose. No amaretto — the kids were eating it.
Cooking the barbecued peaches
- Halve the peaches and take the stones out. I run the knife round the seam and twist. If they’re ripe the halves come away and the stone lifts with a spoon; if they’re not, this is where the cook goes wrong and there isn’t much you can do about it.
- Butter and sugar the cut faces. A little butter and a little soft brown sugar on each half — enough to catch and caramelise, not enough to pool.
- Cut-side down on the grid for three or four minutes. The deflector is out and the fruit sits straight over the coal bed. Mine went on after the Sunday lunch had come off, over ash that had already gone pale, with the dome still at around 200°C.
- Make the cream while they’re on. I whip the double cream, fold the mascarpone through it, then the vanilla bean paste and the icing sugar. It wants to be barely sweet — the sugar on the peaches is doing most of that work.
- Turn them and give the skin side the same. Then off, into bowls, with the cream spooned on and the amaretti crushed over the top at the table so they stay crisp.
What I learned
They looked ripe in the shop and they weren’t quite, and that’s the whole lesson. Scooping the stone out of a peach that’s still firm takes a good deal of the fruit with it — one of the halves in the photograph came apart rather than lifting cleanly, and that’s what it looks like once you’ve had a go at one. It didn’t spoil the pudding; it just meant a couple of them went out rougher than the others. Buying on looks is easy to do and I’d give them a few days in the fruit bowl next time.
The other thing this cook has going for it is what it cost me, which was nothing. The fire had already done a pork loin, a lamb rump, four trout and a dozen sausages by the time the peaches went on. Eight minutes of fruit on the back of all that is the cheapest course of the day.
Variations
I’ve only cooked this the one way, so anything else here is me reasoning rather than reporting. Nectarines should behave the same and don’t need peeling either. Apricots would want less time, being smaller. A drop of something in the cream would work for a table of adults, which is what the amaretti are pointing at anyway — I haven’t tried it. And if you’ve got a fire that’s genuinely still lit rather than burnt down, watch them, because sugar on a cut face over live coals will catch faster than eight minutes.
Related
- Big Green Egg Large review — the unit this was cooked on
- Apple and summer berry crumble on a kamado — the other end-of-the-cook pudding, this one indirect with the deflector in
- Bone-in pork loin on a kamado — the cook these peaches closed
FAQ
Do I need to light the barbecue specially for this?
No, and I wouldn’t. This went on at the end of a Sunday cook, on coals that had already burned down to pale ash, with the ceramic doing the work. Eight minutes of fruit doesn’t justify a light-up and a twenty-minute wait — if you haven’t got a fire already going, a griddle pan indoors gets you to the same place.
Deflector in or out?
Out. The peaches sat straight over the coal bed, direct. That’s the opposite of the apple crumble, which wants the deflector in and the kamado running as an oven — a crumble needs even heat around a dish, and a cut peach just needs something hot underneath it.
What if my peaches aren’t ripe?
They’ll fight you for the stone and you’ll lose some of the flesh getting it out. I don’t have a way round it — I’ve not tried poaching them first or cooking them whole, and I’d rather say so than guess. Buy them a few days early and leave them in the fruit bowl.
Disclosure and provenance
This recipe comes from a single cook on my own Big Green Egg Large on Sunday 31 May 2026. The BGE Large was a Christmas 2025 gift from my sister, originally supplied to her by Big Green Egg as part of a paid content partnership that has since ended. I own the unit outright. Smoke and Lump has no commercial relationship with Big Green Egg, and no commission, payment, or other consideration was received in connection with this recipe.
One photograph exists from this cook — the halved peaches on the grid. There’s no photograph of the cream, none of the peaches being halved, and none of the finished bowls, so the ingredients and the cream are written from my own account of the cook rather than from a frame. The quantities are approximate for the same reason. The dome figure of around 200°C is my recollection; no reading was logged at the time. What the photograph does confirm is the setup: the peaches sat directly on the grid with no deflector in, over a bed of ash that had already burned down pale.
Sourced from the 31 May 2026 cook log — a multi-protein Sunday lunch of chined bone-in pork loin, lamb rump, four whole rainbow trout, smoked sausages and smoky-mayo potato salad, with these peaches to close.