This week I finally got those elusive peaches which I had been looking for a few weeks ago. I didn't feel like having another cobbler so I decided to adapt a cupcake recipe from "The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook" and make a cake with peaches at the bottom and vanilla icing on top.
These are my skinned peaches. It's rather easy to do: make and "X" on the bottom with a knife, drop them in boiling water for 30 seconds and then drop them in ice water. The skin practically comes off my itself. This also works well for tomatoes. The first time I did this The Husband pretty much thought I was doing magic. Apparently he and his mother always peeled them with a knife. I have no idea how you can even manage to peel ripe, easily mushable peaches with a knife without wasting half the peach flesh in the process but I suppose they were never illuminated in the culinary arts.
Oooh, aaaaah. Check out the action shot of my mixer. I have one of those Kitchen Aid stand mixers which is one of my most prized possessions. Seriously, if it ever broke I would probably be catatonic and curled up in fetal position until is was fixed. I exaggerate, but only very slightly. I would maybe just be in fetal position but not catatonic.
This recipe was unusual in that the flour, baking powder, sugar and butter were all creamed together and then the milk was added. I'm used to the standard type of recipe in which the sugar and butter are creamed and then the flour is added with the milk in alternating batches. The final mixture seemed a little dense but I suppose that is because of the change in method.
Since I was afraid that the peaches would not be cooked enough I put them in the oven at 400 Fahrenheit for 20 minutes and then I poured the batter on top. The peaches were very moist so I had to cook the cake for 15 minutes longer than I had anticipated.
While that was in the oven I made the icing. Pretty simple, which makes me wonder why anyone buys icing in a tub from the supermarket. It was just:-Butter at room temperature
-Icing sugar
-Vanilla extract
-A tablespoon or so of milk
The first three ingredients were whipped together until they were incorporated and then I added the milk to smooth things out. The longer you whip this kind of icing the fluffier it will get. By the way that weird looking object in the right side of the picture is just a metal spoon covered with icing sugar. I guess I should have taken it out when I took the picture.
Here is the frosted, iced cake. I added some brown sugar on top for presentation's sake.
And another picture. Yum.The Husband and I both liked it. Given that I have a super sweet tooth I wish that I had added some extra sugar to the peach base as they were not sweet enough for my liking. The peaches, cake and vanilla icing is a good combo. Next time I would used canned peaches however, since I feel that fresh peaches didn't make a radical difference in the final result.
