Summertime Peach Cake

This peach cake is tasty, pretty, and easy! It’s just the thing when you want a company-ready dessert and only want to spend 15 minutes in the kitchen. This is a variation on my favorite snack cake – apple cake – but this one is all dressed up with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar and some peach slices on top.

Like the Peach and Bourbon Frozen Cocktail I posted about earlier, this recipe comes courtesy of a bunch of peaches I needed use up. It was a terrible problem having all these yummy peaches we needed to eat but luckily we got through it. It probably would have helped if I had stopped buying peaches, but that’s too much to ask as far as I’m concerned. I’ll have all winter not to buy peaches (other than the frozen kind) so now is the time to buy and make as many peach recipes as I can.

All I need is an excuse to pull out the mixer and any excuse will do. For this cake I had a particularly good excuse, beyond the very existence of the peaches, since we were on our way out to visit my husband’s parents for the week. And who wants to show up empty-handed? Not me if I can help it. So out came my mixer and measuring cups and peaches and we were on our way to cake.

As with the Peach and Bourbon Frozen Cocktail, I needed to peel the peaches for this recipe (not something I always do since I generally enjoy the texture of the peels). 30 seconds in boiling water and then a dip in an ice bath took care of that. As long as they are ripe they just about peel themselves once you loosen the peels up. It’s quick enough that I took care of the peeling and the chopping while my butter and sugar were getting light and fluffy in the mixer.

Once the butter is all fluffy, it’s just a matter of minutes to mix in the rest of the ingredients and fold in the peaches.

After the cakes cools, which will take 2-3 hours, then you can dust the cake with confectioner’s sugar and top with sliced peaches. However, only do this if you are serving immediately after. The sugar will melt into the cake if it’s allowed to sit out for very long. So plan on dusting just before serving. I put the sugar on mine while we were still home so I could take all the pretty pictures. It didn’t hurt the cake at all to get a second dusting a couple of days later.

It also didn’t hurt the cake to be eaten a couple of days later, which is part of what I love about this kind of easy, snack type cake. The first night we arrived my mother-in-law had made an excellent pavlova for dessert, which we all enjoyed. So then the next night I pulled out my cake, gave it a fresh dusting of sugar, and we all enjoyed the peach cake too.

– Happy Eating, Annemarie

Print Recipe

Summertime Peach Cake

Peaches, a hint of orange, and a cake which goes together in a snap and keeps for days.

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time50 mins

Total Time1 hr 5 mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 8

Author: Just a Little Bit of Bacon

Ingredients

• 1½ cups 6 3/4 oz all-purpose flour
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tsp grated orange zest
• 2 tbsp orange juice
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• ¾ cup 12 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup 7 oz granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs room temperature
• 4 ripe about 1 lb or 2 1/2 cups medium peaches, peeled, pitted, and cubed
• Confectioner's sugar and one sliced peach for topping

Instructions

• Heat oven to 350F.
• Line the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment paper and grease bottom and sides. I highly recommend using a springform pan if you have one for this cake since it makes removing it much easier.
• Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
• In another small bowl combine orange zest, orange juice, and vanilla.
• In the bowl of a standing mixture fitted with the flat beater, add butter and sugar; cream on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 5-6 minutes. (Alternatively, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with a hand mixture for 8-10 minutes.)
• Add eggs one at a time, scraping down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
• Add orange zest mixture. Beat until combined.
• Reduce speed on mixer to low, add flour mixture and stir until a few white streaks remain.
• Remove mixer from stand and fold in peaches with a spatula. Scrape batter into prepared pan, smoothing top.
• Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool until just warm before removing it from the pan. Allow to cool fully before dusting with sugar and topping with peach slices.

Notes

To peel peaches easily, drop them into boiling water and let them sit for 30 seconds. Then transfer them to a bowl of ice water. If your peaches are ripe, the peel will come right off. Then carefully slice around the slippery peach pressing a bit to pull it off the pit.

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