I find it so surprising that there are people who don't like fruit desserts -- I love summer fruit season and all of the baking opportunities it brings! Stone fruits are my favorite, so I was looking forward to this week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe, "Whiskey-Peach Upside-Down Cake."
As an admitted fruit racist, I never eat yellow peaches and I only buy white ones (same with nectarines). So for this cake I used peeled white peaches; peeling is a breeze with a Messermeister serrated peeler. I arranged the peach slices on top of a layer of cake topping (made by cooking butter, dark brown sugar, and whiskey until foamy) poured into the bottom of a cake pan. Then I poured on a cake batter made by beating butter and sugar until fluffy; adding egg yolks, oil, vanilla, and almond extract; alternately adding the dry ingredients (cake flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) and remaining liquids (buttermilk and whiskey); and finally folding in egg whites beaten with cream of tartar to soft peaks.
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I happened to use a three-inch tall call pan and I'm glad I did, because the cake rose quite a bit in the oven. After the cake had cooled for about 20 minutes, I unmolded it and was unhappy with what I saw. I had carefully arranged the slices of peach in two neat concentric circles before pouring on the cake batter. I had expected that all of this fruit would stay in place and that the top of the cake after unmolding would look just like the gorgeous photo in the cookbook. But as you can see from the photo above, the center of the cake is completely devoid of peaches.
As far as I can tell, when I poured the cake batter into the center of the pan, it must have pushed the peaches in the center out towards the edge of the pan. (I actually made two of these cakes at once and this happened with both cakes.) If I make this cake again, I will gently and carefully spoon the cake batter into the pan to make sure that I don't displace the fruit.
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I served this cake plain about twelve hours after it was baked; because I was taking it to the office on a hot summer day, there was no possibility of a whipped cream or ice cream accompaniment. Still, I thought it was delicious. The cake in particular is exceptional. It is gently sweet, moist, and melt-in-your-mouth tender. It is everything that the cake portion of an upside-down cake should be.
The cake as a whole is quite boozy, with whiskey in both the cake batter and the sweet topping. But even though I am a teetotaler who generally can't stand the taste of alcohol, the whiskey didn't bother me all that much. As the recipe headnote says, "even the whiskey averse tend to enjoy the subtle hint of smoky notes that linger on the tongue."
Not to say that I wouldn't enjoy this cake more without the whiskey, because I definitely would. But I know for most folks, the whiskey flavor is a plus. I thought this upside-down cake was wonderful and I would absolutely make it again -- I imagine it would be delicious with just about any type of fruit. And I'll bet it's amazing served warm with ice cream!
Recipe: "Whiskey Peach Upside-Down Cake" from Baked Elements: Our 10 Favorite Ingredients, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.
Previous Posts:
As an admitted fruit racist, I never eat yellow peaches and I only buy white ones (same with nectarines). So for this cake I used peeled white peaches; peeling is a breeze with a Messermeister serrated peeler. I arranged the peach slices on top of a layer of cake topping (made by cooking butter, dark brown sugar, and whiskey until foamy) poured into the bottom of a cake pan. Then I poured on a cake batter made by beating butter and sugar until fluffy; adding egg yolks, oil, vanilla, and almond extract; alternately adding the dry ingredients (cake flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) and remaining liquids (buttermilk and whiskey); and finally folding in egg whites beaten with cream of tartar to soft peaks.
.JPG)
As far as I can tell, when I poured the cake batter into the center of the pan, it must have pushed the peaches in the center out towards the edge of the pan. (I actually made two of these cakes at once and this happened with both cakes.) If I make this cake again, I will gently and carefully spoon the cake batter into the pan to make sure that I don't displace the fruit.
.JPG)
The cake as a whole is quite boozy, with whiskey in both the cake batter and the sweet topping. But even though I am a teetotaler who generally can't stand the taste of alcohol, the whiskey didn't bother me all that much. As the recipe headnote says, "even the whiskey averse tend to enjoy the subtle hint of smoky notes that linger on the tongue."
Not to say that I wouldn't enjoy this cake more without the whiskey, because I definitely would. But I know for most folks, the whiskey flavor is a plus. I thought this upside-down cake was wonderful and I would absolutely make it again -- I imagine it would be delicious with just about any type of fruit. And I'll bet it's amazing served warm with ice cream!
Recipe: "Whiskey Peach Upside-Down Cake" from Baked Elements: Our 10 Favorite Ingredients, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.
Previous Posts:
- "Elvis Was Really onto Something: Chocolate-Peanut Butter-Banana Upside-Down Cake," February 8, 2013.
- "If Life Hands You Lemons, Make Cake: Lemon Upside-Down Cake," February 5, 2013.
- "Small Fruits Deliver Big Flavor: Plum and Blueberry Upside-Down Torte," July 10, 2012.
- "Only the Color Is a Washout: Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake," June 15, 2012.
- "How Can Upside Down Be So Right?: Plum Upside-Down Cake," October 3, 2011.
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