This is by far the best peach dessert I’ve ever had or made. It would not be impossible for me to sit down and eat the entire thing. No regrets either. It’s light, fluffy and sublime with milk or coffee. It swings both ways.
It’s peach season and I may or may not make myself sick on them at this time of the year. I’m not sayin’. Anyway, I couldn’t let this season get by without posting one of our all-time favorite recipes, Peach Upside Down Cake. Its light and fluffy with just the perfect amount of spice and goo. That’s the official term, ya know … goo. If you eat the piece from the center point out, you’ll finish with three of the most amazing bites ever.
At first glance this recipe might be a little bit intimidating but I assure you the time is worth the effort. One of the strategies I use to make recipes such as this go together smoothly is to measure out all my ingredients at one time before I ever start combining anything. The French call this “mise en place” or everything in its place. Doing this also ensures that I don’t miss an ingredient. I also use the left to right method which just means I put all my measured ingredients on my left and as I use them I put the container on my right. It may seem silly, but it never fails to alert me to an ingredient that may have been overlooked for a moment.
I would love to say that I used organic peaches in this recipe but in fact, it is very difficult to find good, organic peaches locally. I typically only eat fresh peaches when they are in season so I allow them to be one of my somewhat guilty pleasures, especially since they’re #1 on the dirty dozen list. Sad, but true, that peaches are nearly impossible to do organically. I know. I’ve tried. We eventually cut down the tree because of the exasperating nature of our yearly failures.
One thing I’ve done with this recipe is to mix the dry ingredients in two little baggies (flour mixture separately from the brown sugar mixture) and keep it in my cupboard like a pre-packaged cake mix. That allows me to put the cake together in just a few minutes, instead of having to dig out all the ingredients each time. At one point I think I had three packages of them to make this cake three times. It didn’t last long. Easier to make means we make it more often. If you try it, I bet you will too!
- 4 eggs, separated
- ⅓ cup butter, cubed
- ⅔ cup light brown sugar
- 1 tsp. cinnamon, divided
- ½ tsp. ginger, divided
- 3 peaches
- 1 cup flour, gluten free or all purpose wheat (both work well)
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. xanthan gum (omit if using wheat flour)
- ¼ tsp. salt
- ¾ cup cane sugar
- 3 Tbls. milk
- 2 Tbls butter, melted
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- Heat oven to 375˚.
- Separate the four eggs into whites and yolks.
- Place cubed butter into 8-12" round pan or skillet.
- Place pan in oven to melt the butter.
- Combine brown sugar with ½ tsp. cinnamon and ¼ tsp. ginger.
- Sprinkle on top of melted butter and set aside.
- Combine flour, cinnamon, ginger, salt, xanthan gum and baking powder in bowl. Set aside.
- Slice pealed peaches and arrange on top of brown sugar in baking pan.
- Beat egg yolks in different bowl until well-combined.
- Add sugar and beat until light in color and fluffy. Add melted butter, milk and vanilla and mix well.
- In separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
- Add flour mixture to egg yolk mixture and mix well.
- Slowly fold in beaten egg whites, being careful not to overmix.
- Pour over peaches in baking dish.
- Bake at 375˚ until a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 minutes.
- Allow to cool 10-15 minutes then invert onto serving dish.
- Great served with whipped cream of ice cream!