Ina Gartens Fresh Peach Cake

Once again, I present a bad photo, but this cake was delish!
My friend and her 5 children spent the night with us and she had purchased some peaches from a fruit stand. We decided to make this cake for breakfast and it was really good. It is a basic coffeecake batter and I used buttermilk instead of sour cream. You layer the cake batter, sliced peaches and a cinnamon-sugar mixture and then bake the cake. The house smelled absolutely wonderful and we all enjoyed this summer-y breakfast!

Here is the recipe for Fresh Peach Cake
* I used low-fat buttermilk instead of sour cream

CEiMB- Peach French Toast Bake

This week's Craving Ellie recipe was chosen by Liz of The Not So Skinny Kitchen. She chose Peach French Toast Bake.
When I first checked this book out from the library a year and a couple months ago, this french toast bake was one of the 4 recipes I had to make right away.

I made it with blueberries and blackberries, the first time, and have made it multiple other times, even made it into mini individual size servings.
It is fast and easy and I love that you can throw it together the night before. I have used different berries and was lucky enough to use the fresh peaches off my parents peach tree a couple of times when I made this.

Go check out what the other CEiMB-er's thought about this recipe by checking out the CEiMB Blogroll!

Recipe for Peach French Toast Bake

Roasted Peach Ice Cream with Cardamom

A couple of weeks ago, I saw some tweets going around about ice cream making.
Tracey chose the flavor-Roasted Banana Ice Cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop, , and a couple of us joined in- Kayte , Margaret and me.
Except, I didn't have any bananas, so I made Roasted Peach Ice Cream instead.
It is pretty fun to bake/cook/ice cream make along with other people who are on twitter. You can share pics (like the delicious one Tracey took of her bananas getting ready to roast, covered in brown sugar) and talk about how the process is coming along.
This recipe was fairly simple. You roast the peaches or bananas with brown sugar in the oven, blend the fruit with whole milk, lemon juice, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Then you let the mixture chill in the fridge and then you churn. I added a dash of cardamom because I love it and also because I had just made Dorie's Dimply Peach Cake which combines peaches and cardamom and they go great together.
I took the pics before the ice cream had firmed up all the way, so the scoop is looking pretty messy. oh well- this was delicious ice cream!
The roasted banana flavor got mixed reviews- mainly that it was really banana-y. Needed some kind of topping, like peanut butter or something. I might just have to make the banana version-sounds like a pretty good excuse to make peanut butter ice cream topping!

You can find the recipe for Roasted Banana Ice Cream on Tracey's blog

One Year Ago-Fresh Peach Ice Cream in Cinnamon Sugar WonTon Cups

Dimply Peach Cake with Lime Curd Swirl

So, I found myself with a little leftover lime curd from the Tiramisu cake and millions of options of what I could do with it were going through my brain. Cakes, muffins, cookies, ice cream- really the possibilities seemed endless, and then I saw the very ripe peaches that needed to be used too.
Dorie's Plum (but in this case, Peach) Dimply Cake is one of my favorite recipes. I made it the first time for myself for Mother's day-check the post out HERE and found the combination of cardamom, orange zest, brown sugar and fruit to be wonderful.
It wasn't too long before someone chose it for TWD and unlike some things that I decide not to make again, I made this cake again and this time made 2 different variations- nectarine with orange zest and peach with lemon and basil- check out the post HERE.

This time I decided to make the cake with peaches, lime zest, cardamom, and then, swirl lime curd into the batter.
Good choice.
I used a jumbo muffin tin and got 6 cakes. I swirled about a Tablespoon of lime curd into the top of each cake and then added 3 peach slices. I baked them for 25 minutes and they weren't done yet, so I kept adding 5 more minutes, until they were finally done.
We ate these for breakfast on a Sunday and my husband loved them! He actually ate 2. There is just something about this cake. It is delicious!

There was still a little bit of lime curd and I turned it into lime curd ice cream, but you will have to wait a couple days to see it- it was fabulous.

Hope you don't mind the little hands- there is always someone trying to steal the food I am taking pictures of!
One Year Ago-Rhubarb Filled Cupcakes, Rhubarb Mini Turnovers, Rhubarb Galette, and Rhubarb Coffeecake

Peach Frozen Yogurt and Georgia Peach Buttercream

I have been playing around with my photos a little bit. It's pretty fun.
I don't really remember how it came up, but some of us were talking about making ice cream and Nancy mentioned how delicious David Lebovitz's Peach Frozen Yogurt was and since I had peaches, I made it.

I didn't weigh my peaches (mistake)- I just assumed that my peach mixture was the perfect amount, but when I churned it, I realized I should have just measured the darn things. My frozen yogurt yielded way more than 3 cups and it was really peachy, which was fine with me, but I don't think it turned out exactly how the recipe wanted it to. We still enjoyed it. My youngest came in and saw me taking pictures and snatched the cone from me- so I let her hold it for the pic.

My mother-in-law had a birthday at the end of July and I decided I would make her a little cake. She had a really busy day, so I just made it, took it over and put it in her fridge, and she was surprised later, when she came home.

I saw the recipe for Georgia Peach Buttercream in the June issue of Southern Living and it sounded like a perfect, summery frosting. Plus, I live in Georgia, so I pretty much had to make it.
The frosting is a basic buttercream with peach puree added to it, to give it a light peachy flavor. I read a couple of the reviews and one of them said that the peach flavor was really light, so I added more peach puree than it called for. It did add a little extra flavor, but made the frosting extra hard to keep on the cake. I think this frosting would work great on cupcakes or a 9x13-inch cake. Maybe it was just really hot- once I put the cake in the fridge it was all good.

I used this cupcake recipe, which uses a white cake mix, but adds buttermilk, butter, and almond extract, which all give it a great texture and flavor. I made three 6-inch cakes and my mother-in-law called me later raving about the cake. She said it was her new favorite. Yay! for birthday success!
Here are all the links to the recipes

David Lebovitz's Peach Frozen Yogurt

Georgia Peach Buttercream Frosting

Basic White Cupcake

One Year Ago-Greek Chicken Pizza

Blackberry-Peach Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping

I am not really sure how some things qualify as breakfast , when they have the word cake in the recipe title; I won't complain because I like making treats and this one was enjoyed by the entire family- they loved it warm and they loved it cold- I made quite a few changes, including the size (I made 2 4-inch cakes and 2 smaller than those), the changes in the recipe are included in bold; I am short on words, so enjoy a few pics- in a few days the situation will be fixed.





Blackberry-Peach Coffee Cake adapted from Southern Living Magazine


Prep: 20 min.; Bake: 1 hr., 10 min.; Cool: 1 hr., 30 min.


Streusel Topping
1/2 cup butter, softened (I used 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup vanilla flavored Greek style yogurt)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk (I used 1/3 cup whole milk and 1/3 cup skim)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups peeled and sliced fresh firm, ripe peaches (about 2 large peaches, 7 oz. each)
1 cup fresh blackberries
Powdered sugar
Garnishes: fresh blackberries, sliced peaches

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare Streusel Topping.

2. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add granulated sugar, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition.

3. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; add to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9-inch springform pan; top with sliced peaches and blackberries. Pinch off 1-inch pieces of Streusel Topping, and drop over fruit.

4. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 10 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes or until center of cake is set. (A wooden pick inserted in center will not come out clean.) Cool completely on a wire rack (about 1 1/2 hours). Dust with powdered sugar. Garnish, if desired.

Note: We found that using a shiny or light-colored pan gave us the best results. If you have a dark pan, wrap the outside of the pan with heavy-duty aluminum foil to get a similar result.

Peach Coffee Cake: Omit blackberries. Increase peaches to 3 cups sliced (about 3 large peaches, 7 oz. each). Proceed with recipe as directed

Streusel Topping


Prep: 10 min.

This recipe goes with Blackberry-Peach Coffee Cake, Peach Coffee Cake

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add granulated sugar and brown sugar, beating well. Add flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg; beat just until blended.

I didn't follow the streusel directions. I mixed 1/2 cup flour with 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Then I cut in 4 Tbls of cold butter and sprinkled it on top of the coffee cake.

One Year Ago- Panzanella

Party Chicken Salad

Ripe Georgia peaches, toasted pecans, fresh basil, and subbing fat-free mayo, made this take on Chicken Salad from Southern Living Magazine, a nice, summery lunch, which I served on rolls for my family, who all really liked the flavors and textures that complimented each other and it would also be a great recipe to serve at a baby shower or party of some kind because the versatility of the presentation, which is implied by the title, Party Chicken Salad.
(1-sentence blogging for a week- check out the participants- HERE!)

Recipe for Party Chicken Salad

Overnight French Toast Mini Cups

Some things just have to be revisited. Last summer, I checked out The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger from the library and chose 4 recipes that I wanted to make right away. One of them was Peach French Toast Bake.

When I made it last summer, I added some blueberries and blackberries to the peaches that go on top and it was a delightful breakfast.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a loaf of french bread that was a little stale, so I decided to make this breakfast dish again.
We had some frozen peaches left from last summer and I decided to turn the french toast bake into single servings by cutting the bread into cubes and baking them in a muffin tin.
I just put some bread cubes into each well of the muffin tin and poured the egg/milk mixture over top. I added the peaches and blueberries, covered them with plastic wrap, and set them in the fridge overnight. I also reduced the baking time by about half.

My family really likes this breakfast.
If you need a filling and nutritious breakfast that can be put together quickly the night before and then just popped in the oven in the morning, make this one!

Here is the link to the Food Network Recipe

Here is the link to my post when I made this recipe last summer



Up Next- Greek Tuna Salad Pasta

TWD- Honey-Peach Ice Cream

This weeks recipe, Honey Peach Ice Cream, was chosen by Tommi over at brown interior. You can get the recipe by visiting her blog.
I didn't know if I would have time to make the recipes for June, since we were about to move across the country, but I made time for them.
My friend wanted me to make her ice cream before I moved, so this was the perfect opportunity. Except for the fact that peaches aren't ripe in Utah until about August.
My parents have a peach tree in their backyard and boy, did it produce gorgeous, delicious, beautiful, juicy, huge peaches by the bushel last summer. We had so many we didn't know what to do.
I made peach pie, Dorie's Dimply Cake with peaches, peach ice cream, smoothies, chiffon cake with peaches as the filling- I mean, you get the idea.
We had so, so many and so, we froze a bunch of them too.
I used those delicious frozen peaches for this ice cream.
I followed Dorie's instructions and pureed half the peach-honey mixture and left the other peach mixture in chunks. Having the peach chunks in there, didn't really bother any of us.
The only thing that most of my tasters noted was that this ice cream tasted much better after it had ripened in the freezer for 24 hours.
I made it in the morning and it had time to sit in the freezer for a couple of hours, but it tasted much better the next day.
Go see what the other TwDer's thought about this fabulous frozen treat by checking out the TWD Blogroll!

Coming Tomorrow- Overnight French Toast Mini Cups

TWD-Parisian Apple Tartlet or Plum, Mango, Apricot, Peach and Pear

Pear

Mango

Plum

Apricot above, Peach below

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Parisian Apple Tartlet, was chosen by Jessica, who blogs over at My Baking Heart.
You can find the recipe on Jessica's blog.
This recipe is easy if you use frozen puff pastry. I was just trying to get as many recipes for TWD as I could, out of the way before we moved to Georgia. I used the frozen puff pastry I found at my local grocery store (Pepperidge Farms), even though Dorie suggest using an all-butter puff pastry.
I was in a hurry, so I didn't even think about making the puff pastry from scratch. I did use as many fruits as I could find though. I made the tartlets about an inch smaller than Dorie suggested and made 12- 2 with each kind of fruit. The favorites in our house were those made with peaches and plums. The topping fell off the apple tartlet and it didn't turn out very pretty, so that is why the pic of that one is at the very bottom of this post.
This dessert would be a great ending to a party or a fun dessert to make with young kids. Check out what all the other TWD-ers came up with by going through the TWD Blogroll!

Up Next- a simple fruit salad

Rice Pudding Cake with Blueberry-Peach Compote

My younger brother had a birthday this past week. I told him a couple of weeks ago to find a cake he wanted me to make for his birthday celebration. We looked at a couple of things together and then he told me he wanted a cake made out of oats with rice pudding in between the layers. Gross? Yeah. I told him I didn't think that was going to work.
So, then I thought that maybe I could find a rice pudding cake. Sure enough, I searched on epicurious.com, and found this Rice Pudding Cake that appeared in Bon Appetit Magazine about 12 years ago.
I decided this was the cake for Andrew.
I know it might sound a little strange, but it was a huge success.
You just make rice pudding as you normally would on the stovetop, let it cool a bit and add a egg yolk/sugar mixture. You let that cool a little and then add in the egg whites that have been beaten to stiff peaks. Then you bake the "cake" in the oven for an hour and it becomes firm enough that you can slice it into cake slices.
The compote originally called for cherries and apricots, but I had blueberries and peaches in the freezer, so I just used those. It was delicious.
For any of you rice pudding lovers, you should really try this take on rice pudding!

Rice Pudding Cake with Cherry-Apricot Compote Bon Appétit May 1997
(TORTA DI RISO CON COMPOSTA DI CILIEGE E ALBICOCCHE)
Yield: Makes 10 to 12 servings
4 1/2 cups whole milk

1 cup arborio rice or medium-grain rice

Pinch of salt

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs

1/2 cup chopped blanched slivered almonds (about 2 ounces)

1/4 cup chopped candied orange peel (I used crystallized ginger)

2 teaspoons (packed) grated lemon peel

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

4 large eggs, separated

Powdered sugar

*Cherry-Apricot Compote

Bring milk to boil in heavy large saucepan. Stir in rice and salt and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered until most of milk is absorbed and mixture is thick but still creamy, stirring frequently, about 30 minutes (mixture will resemble thick rice pudding). Add 1/2 cup sugar and stir 2 minutes. Remove mixture from heat and cool to lukewarm, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter 10-inch-diameter springform pan with 2 1/2-inch-high sides. Dust pan with breadcrumbs. Mix almonds, candied orange peel, lemon peel and almond extract into rice mixture. Whisk egg yolks and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in medium bowl to blend. Stir into rice mixture.

Cool completely.

Beat egg whites in large bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold whites into rice mixture in 2 additions. Transfer mixture to prepared pan. Bake until cake is golden and firm to touch, about 1 hour. Transfer to rack and cool completely in pan. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Bring to room temperature before serving.)
Run small sharp knife around cake to loosen. Release pan sides from cake. Place cake on platter. Sift powdered sugar over cake. Cut into wedges and serve with Cherry-Apricot Compote.

*Cherry-Apricot Compote Bon Appétit May 1997
(COMPOSTA DI CILIEGE E ALBICOCCHE)
Delicious with the Rice Pudding Cake or with biscotti or vanilla ice cream.

Yield: Makes 6 servings
1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup water

1 cup dry white wine (I used white grape juice)

2 teaspoons grated orange peel (I used lime peel)

1 1/2 pounds apricots, halved, pitted, sliced, or one 1-pound package frozen sliced peaches (no sugar added) (I used frozen peaches)

1 1/4 pounds fresh Bing cherries, pitted, or one 1-pound package frozen pitted dark sweet cherries (no sugar added) (I used frozen blueberries)

Combine first 4 ingredients in heavy large saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves.

Bring to boil. Add apricots and cherries; simmer until fruit is tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to bowl.

Chill until cold, about 2 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled.)

Coming Tomorrow- Whole Wheat Pitas