Cake of the Week: Peach Cobbler

Peach cobbler cooking creates one of the most pleasantly pungent perfumes my kitchen has had the kismet* to know. Peeling and paring your peaches can be a bit of a pain, but the result is totally worth any and all effort expended!

 (I apologize – the alliteration bug bit me this morning and I can’t control the consonance.*)

Summertime is stone fruit-time, and if you’ve taken a peek at my sidebar you know I’m thinking peachy. This cobbler recipe comes from Brown Eyed Baker, and blows away the Betty Crocker version we baked back home (sorry Mama – yours was good but this recipe is remarkable).

The cobbler part (Crust? Biscuit topping? Whatever you want to call it!) is light and buttery and nicely crunchy on the outside. I halved the topping and kept the number of peaches the same, making my cobbler the perfect ratio of peach to crust. (The following recipe is exactly what I made, for the original go here.) 

And if you happen to have heavy whipped cream on hand, you don’t have to whip it up to top your cobbler, but I strongly suggest you take the extra time and consume the extra calories…it’s worth it!

(Useful sidenote: If you have extra whipped cream, you can keep it in a tupperware in the freezer!)

Peach Cobbler

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Bake Time: 50 to 60 minutes

For the Peach Filling:
6 peaches, peeled, pitted & sliced into ¼- to ½-inch slices
1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Pinch of salt

For the Cobbler Topping:
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cake flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup (4 tablespoons/½ stick ) unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces
1/3 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Combine the slices peaches, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a 9-inch round baking dish (or 8x8 pan, or 9x9 pan); set aside for 10-15 minutes.

3. In the meantime, make the cobbler topping. Whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in another large bowl. Toss the butter pieces with your fingers, and work them into the flour mixture until it is the texture of coarse meal, with little pea-size pieces. Pour the buttermilk on top and, using a fork, mix until just combined. (You could also use a food processor for this part.)

4. Drop the cobbler topping dough by the spoonful all over the peach filling.

5. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

6. Call your preferred peach-eating partners and chill on your couch consuming cobbler.  

*Kismet - n. luck or fate

*Consonance - n. accord or agreement/correspondence of sounds; harmony of sounds.

Cake of the Week: Summer Peach Chantilly Cake

Oh my goodness. I know I keep saying this…but this may be the BEST cake I’ve ever made. 

It rivals the epic cheesecake in the beauty category. And texture? It may beat out the Mint Chocolate Pound Cake. And overall taste? Well the Key Lime Cake put up a good fight, but fresh peaches + mascarpone cream + whipped cream frosting = can anything compare??? I think not.

Get excited. Get jealous. I bring you the Summer Peach Chantilly Cake. 

I’ve been very into summer fruit recently (that’s pretty much the only good that comes from this hotter-than-the-gates-of-hell July). Every Sunday and Thursday the Farmer’s Market free samples remind me how good juicy ripe sunny peaches are. I’m pretty sure I sampled a white nectarine and said (out loud) Oh wow, this is what summer tastes like!

And being myself, I had to figure out how to translate that sweet summery deliciousness into cake form…

I've only spent 2 of the last 7 summers at home: the summer before my senior year of high school, and the summer before I went to Niger my junior year of college. In both instances, I worked at the Petaluma Whole Foods in the espresso bar/juice bar/bakery department. My love of coffee was well established before then (thanks to a job at a drive through coffee shop, i.e. the best job ever!), but behind the Whole Foods counter was where my smoothie experience began, and where my love of cake developed. I was the girl who put out samples. All the time. Because I like sampling, and I like to make other people happy with cake/cookie/pie samples too!

And I still love making people treats. There’s something really satisfying and oddly fulfilling about coming up with an idea, executing that idea, and then watching people appreciate it. 

To me, that’s what baking is all about – spreading the cake love! Because what’s the point of making something if it isn’t going to be enjoyed?

I remembered a Peach Chantilly Cake from Whole Foods…and it involved mascarpone filling…so I took those two components as my inspiration and got started baking. I made the same white cake that I used for the Oreo Cake (sans Oreos of course). I then layered sliced peaches with mascarpone cheese filling, and then covered the whole shebang with whipped cream frosting. The cake is pretty sweet and so are the peaches, so I minimized the sugar in the filling and whipped cream. Overall it balanced out to be light and delicious. Exactly the summery dessert I was going for!

I made this cake for a rooftop house dinner (we grilled shrimp kabobs – yum!). I knew the cake was going to be good, but oh man, I don’t think I was prepared for the extreme awesomeness. One of my housemates said it was the best cake he’s ever had. After a couple delectable bites I just couldn’t restrain myself: Guys, not to toot my own horn, but oh-my-goodness-I’m-going-to-fall-out-of-my-chair this cake is awesome!

I hope you make this. And I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Oh, and I should add that the Whipped Cream Frosting came dangerously close to being another blue cake meltdown…but then it miraculously turned around and is now my new favorite frosting! I originally followed a recipe that used gelatin to stabilize the whipped cream. But then the gelatin got too hard before I added it to the whipped cream, and just overall didn’t work. So the second time around, I didn’t cook the gelatin as long. As I panicked about the impending meltdown (and Photoman laughed hysterically) I added corn starch and meringue powder in copious amounts. And it worked!!! I cannot get over how excited I am about that particular success!

 Cake:

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 2/3 cup sugar

3 large egg whites, at room temperature

• Preheat over to 350F. Grease and flour two 8-9 inch pans.
• In a large bowl cream the butter until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the milk and vanilla and mix to combine.
• In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Add the dry ingredients to butter mixture. Mix until integrated. Stir in sugar. With an electric mixer on low speed, beat for 30 seconds. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and beat for 2 minutes.
• In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
• Add the egg whites to the rest of the mixture. Beat for 2 more minutes.
• Fill 2 8 or 9-inch cake pans. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cakes for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.
• Once cakes are cooled, freeze them for at least 1 hour (to make cutting them in half easier).

Filling:

16 oz. mascarpone cheese

¼ cup heavy cream

5 Tablespoons powdered sugar

1 Teaspoon vanilla

3 peaches, thinly sliced (peel 2 before slicing, leave the peal on 1 to use to decorate the top of the cake.

• Beat cheese, cream, sugar, and vanilla with a mixer until smooth.

Assemble Cake:

• Cut the two cakes in half (to make a 4-layer cake).
• Spread mascarpone filling on the first layer, then cover with sliced peaches. Repeat with each layer.

Whipped Cream Frosting:

¼ cup cold water

1 Teaspoon unflavored gelatin

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 Teaspoon vanilla

1 Tablespoon meringue powder

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

• Chill mixing bowl and beaters for at least 15 minutes before using. Place water in a small microwave-safe bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over water and allow to soften 5 minutes.
• Dissolve gelatin by microwaving for 1 minute. Remove from microwave and let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes; gelatin must be liquid but not warm when added to cream.
• Remove bowl and beaters from refrigerator and pour in cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. Beat together just until beater marks begin to show distinctly.
• Add gelatin mixture to cream, pouring in a steady stream while beating constantly.
• Add meringue powder and cornstarch. Beat until stiff peaks form (this took about 5 minutes. Don’t give up – keep beating!).

Make the Whipped Cream Frosting from this post -- it's a MUCH better recipe.

• Frost the outside of the cake. Decorate top of the cake with skin-on peach slices.

Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (preferable longer) before cutting.

Enjoy!

Cake of the Week: Cherry Peach Honey Cake

Thanks to the modern wonders of food transportation and agriculture in South America, we can get pretty much anything any time of the year. You could eat peaches in December, but something about that just seems wrong. It’s not worth it - a peach out of season is crunchy and bland. Or even worse, mealy. Gross.

But NOTHING beats peaches and cherries when they’re local and fresh and de-freaking-licious. The window is short - before you know it you’ll blink and cherry season is over. Blink twice, and the peaches have been replaced with fall apples (also delicious, but that’s a story for another post). 

At home in Caliornia, we used to buy flats of cherries on the side of the road. A local farmer would put up a table underneath a big umbrella, and paint a big sign proclaiming “Fresh Cherries!” On the way back from the beach or a hot summer long run, who can resist that? 

Peaches came to my home kitchen via the Petaluma Farmer’s Market on Wednesday afternoons. On the way back from the public Swim Center (where we spent almost every day in the summer) my mama would make us stop off at Walnut Park so she could pick up some produce (while my sisters and I waited impatiently in the car.) Sometimes we walked around the market with her, and if we asked nicely (or badgered her into compliance), she might get us flavored honey sticks to suck on. Which leads me to this week’s Cherry Peach Honey Cake.

So carpe diem in the summer fruit sense. 

Get to a farmer’s market, or even a regular grocery store and take advantage of these luscious short-lived fruits. I definitely did. They cherries looked up at me, deep dark red and ready for eating, just begging for a place in my basket. And the peaches, oh the peaches, I just can’t resist their fuzzy-skinned peachy-pink goodness.

I wanted to make something a little different than a pie or cobbler, so I got to photograzing, and found inspiration. The original recipe calls for nectarines, peaches’ bald cousin. But of course peaches are an easy substitute. And again, those adorable cherries batted their long lashes at me from inside the fridge, just begging to be included. Why not? Pit a handful and toss them in!

This cake is quite yummy (how could it not be with such star-powered fruit?). But I didn’t have whole wheat pastry flour, so I used regular whole wheat flour. Probably because of this, it took much longer to cook than the original recipe says. It’s definitely not bad with the whole wheat flour (and I believe the whole wheat qualifies it as a breakfast cake, am I right?), but if you’re looking for something cakier and lighter, get more motivated than I was and venture out to find pastry flour. 

Cherry Peach Honey Cake (adapted from So Good & Tasty)

serves 8

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (like I said, I used regular whole wheat flour)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup raw honey

2 eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon pure almond extract

2 nectarines, pitted and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (or 2 peaches and about ¾ cup pitted and halved cherries)

1/2 tablespoon demerara sugar (nope – didn’t do this)

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (didn’t do this either)

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Lightly butter a 9' springform pan or 9" tart pan with removable bottom. (I used a 9-inch cake pan)

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl beat the butter and honey until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in the extracts. Add in the flour mixture and stir just until combined.

Spread the batter in the pan evenly, than scatter the nectarines (peaches and cherries) over the top. Stir together the demerara sugar and nutmeg and sprinkle over the top.

Bake until the cake is golden brown and the top is firm but tender when lightly touched, about 30-35 minutes. (Mine took more like 50 minutes.) Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool to room temperature.