This easy to bake cake, involves a rich batter layered with perfectly ripe fruit, capturing that just picked summer fresh taste. Peaches are one of those fruits that jump out of the orchard bushel and into your grocery cart when they are at their peak. They should be firm to the touch, but smell sweet and ripe. In the fall, try making this with crisp apples. Follow the harvest and tailor this recipe to whichever fruits are in season.
Evelyn Pike Rubin’s Sweet Summer Peach Cake
Servings
10 Servings
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup apple juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 pound peaches about 3 to 4 medium, sliced
- 5 tablespoon sugar mixed with 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease and flour a 9-inch spring form tube pan. (There are cooking sprays that have a touch of flour in them, perfect for this application.)
- Prepare the batter by beating the eggs, vegetable oil, juice and vanilla, in a large bowl, on medium speed, for several minutes. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. A standard kitchen strainer makes a great sifter. On low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the egg mixture, and then beat on medium speed, for several minutes, until smooth and thick. If you don’t have an electric mixer, you can do it Evelyn’s way, sifting together the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt then creating a well and using a wooden spoon, stirring in the juice, oil, vanilla and egg.
- Start the filling by removing the pits from the peaches. A simple technique is to cut around the circumference of the peach and twist. The two halves should separate and the stone pit will be easy to remove. Cut the peaches into ¼ – inch thick slices. Sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar over the peaches and toss to coat. Don’t let the peach mixture sit too long it will become soggy.
- Pour a third of the batter (about 1 to 1 ¼ cups) into the bottom of the prepared pan. Top the batter with half the peaches, trying not to let them touch the sides of the pan. Spoon the next third of batter, and then the remaining peaches, finishing with the remaining batter. Bake at 375 degrees for 1½ hours. After 1 hour, check the cake to be sure the top is not browning too quickly. If it is, cover loosely with foil and continue baking. After 1½ hours a bamboo skewer inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean, the cake should be golden brown and the texture firm to the touch. Allow the cake to cool completely before removing from the pan. Sliding a knife around the edges and underneath the cake will make transferring to a cake plate much easier.
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- Cook any remaining peaches in a saucepan until they become very soft and the syrup thickens. Cool and enjoy as a topping for the cake. A dollop of whipped cream and a scoop of vanilla ice cream couldn’t hurt. The cake has a dense texture, similar to coffee cake, which makes it wonderful for breakfast the next day.
- Courtesy of Recipes Remembered, a Celebration of Survival, June Hersh, The Museum of Jewish Heritage, June, 2011
Feel free to use a variety of fruit like plums and blueberries. And yes, the spring form makes it visually beautifully and easy to prepare. But, it is definitely more cake than pie, with height and density.
So glad you’ve explored all the recipes. Look for my next book The Kosher Carnivore this September for more recipes like these.
actually when made in a spring form this sounds like it will be kind of like a pie disguised as a cake and saves me the extra time
Hi Wendy, good question and really observant! Both a Bundt pan and a spring form can have a center tube which creates the shape you see in the photo, but a spring form generally has smooth sides and a side release which makes the cake easier to free from the pan when it is done baking. We fudged the photo a bit to give you a suggestion of what the cake might look like. I like using the spring form for these gooey batter recipes, they are more reliable for releasing the cake. Enjoy
Sounds like a great recipe! Photo shows bundt pan, but recipe says spring form pan. Is there a difference?
Isn’t it so cool when the name of a food actually describes it’s character ( don’t you wish the same held true for everything in life). Ruchama is so right about peaches. Buy Freestone, which as their name suggests has a center stone that frees itself easily, while cling peaches have a stone that clings to the flesh. The cling variety are not generally available at all markets as they are less popular and a bit finicky to handle.
I love peaches and will probably make a vegan version. One bit of advice, only freestone peaches can be pitted by the method described. Cling peaches cannot, even when ripe. If you try the method described with clings, you end up with a handful of mushed peach. (Ask me how I know 🙂 ). For those you can cut into segments from the outside in then run the paring knife down the seed; or you can quarter the peach by slices on four sides, leaving a bit of peach in a rectangle surrounding the pit. You can nibble on this remainder, or consider a summer fruit soup with the pits and clinging peach added for flavor during cooking, then removed for serving.