Ripe summer peaches, caramel topping and melt-in-your-mouth almond cake come together in the perfect summer dessert; Peach Almond Upside Down Cake.
Have I told you about my love affair with summer peaches? Seriously, the other day I was eating a peach after lunch and just looked at my son and said “I’m so glad there are summer peaches in the world”. He looked at me like I was a little crazy and just shook his head.
What can I say? Our fruit share from North Star Orchard is one of the simple joys of my life. From August until November I open that bag of fruit each week like a kid on Christmas morning. This year we’ve been lucky with the peaches. So I made this lovely little Peach Almond Upside Down Cake last week when I had a bunch of peaches that were ripe and ready to eat.
The cake part of the recipe is a variation on the basic buttermilk cake that I use for Apple Upside Down Cake and Blueberry Crumb Cake. Peaches have an affinity with almonds since the middle of the peach pit has that bitter almond flavor. I added almond meal to the cake for tenderness and almond extract for flavor.
You can use slightly under ripe peaches for this recipe or you could probably even use frozen peaches. If you use frozen peaches with sugar added you might want to adjust the amount of sugar in the topping.
I love this cake slightly warm from the oven, but the flavor of the cake gets even better the second day. Peach Almond Upside Down Cake goes great with Sweet Corn Ice Cream or Buttermilk Ice Cream.
Yields 12
Peaches have an affinity with almonds since the middle of the peach pit has that bitter almond flavor. The batter has almond meal for tenderness and almond extract for flavor. This cake is delicious still slightly warm from the oven, but the flavor of the cake gets even better the second day.
30 minPrep Time
35 minCook Time
1 hr, 5 Total Time
Ingredients
- 2 oz (4 Tablespoons, 60g) unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup packed (4 oz, 115g) light brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 4 large peaches, peeled, pitted and cut into 8 slices each
- 1 egg plus 2 yolks
- 1/2 cup (4 oz, 125ml) buttermilk (see note)
- 1/2 teaspoon real almond extract
- 1.5 cups (7 oz 200g) cake flour
- 1/2 cup (2 oz, 55g) almond meal (see note)
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (8 oz, 215g) granulated sugar
- 8 tablespoons (4 oz, 115g) butter, softened and cut into 1" pieces
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°f convection or 350°f conventional
- Line the bottom of an 8 square or 9 round cake pan with parchment paper or butter and flour the pan
- Toss the sliced peaches with the brown sugar and the almond extract. Allow to macerate for 30 minutes to an hour
- Drain the peaches and set aside
- Combine the peach juice with the butter in a small saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil. Allow to boil for 1 minute to thicken.
- Pour the warm caramel into the prepared pan
- Arrange the peach slices onto the caramel.
- Place the pan in the freezer while preparing the batter
- Combine the egg, yolks, almond extract and 1/4 cup of the buttermilk in a small bowl
- Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a mixing bowl, add the sugar and almond flour
- Run the mixer on low speed for 30 seconds to combine the dry ingredients
- Add the butter to the dry ingredients and mix until combined
- Add the remaining 1/4 cup of buttermilk to the flour and butter mixture
- Turn the mixer to medium high for 2-3 minutes
- Turn off the mixer and scrape the bowl and paddle
- Add the egg mixture in two batches, scraping between additions
- Gently spread the batter over the peaches
- Bake until the center of the cake springs back lightly when pressed, or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes
- Cool in the pan for 10 minutes
- Unmold the cake while it's still a little warm by running a paring knife around the sides of the cake and inverting onto a serving platter
- If any caramel or peaches stick in the pan scrape them out with a small spatula and replace on the cake while still warm.
- Serve warm or room temperature
Notes
The best substitute for buttermilk is buttermilk powder . You can keep the powder in the pantry and it keeps for months.
Almond meal, or almond flour, is just ground almonds. So you can buy almonds and grind them in a food processor or blender to make your own almond meal.
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Eileen Gray
The Finer Cookie/Kim
Eileen Gray