A winner of a recipe. Should be, since it’s the culmination of kitchen magic by the chefs at America’s Test Kitchen. I’ve made almond cake before (there are two on my blog archives already) but no almond cake I’ve ever tasted has been so tender, and so full of almond flavor as this one. Does that get you interested?

Saying I’m a fan of America’s Test Kitchen is certainly a true statement. I don’t think there has ever been a recipe I’ve tried from their books or the TV show that hasn’t been wonderful.  It had been a week before that I watched the program for this cake and knew I’d be making it. I needed a dessert to serve to one of my bible study groups that was meeting here at my house. We happen to be studying Romans, Paul’s letter to the people of Rome, cautioning them about their behavior. Maybe if they’d had some of this cake, they might have listened better!

This cake was really very easy to make, although there are a few steps to it – it’s not a slap-dash kind of cake. You do have to toast the almonds and you make a couple of different bowls of things before it all comes together – but it all gets mixed in the food processor at the end, it’s poured into a greased (and parchment lined) round cake pan and it bakes. The topping (almonds, sugar and lemon zest) are added after pouring the batter into the pan and there’s nothing else to it. The cake has nearly 2 cups of almonds in it, so it’s not the cheapest cake to make these days, what with the cost of almonds rising by the day. The eggs (4 of them) certainly must help with the light texture – and you do whiz them up until they’re light before mixing up the rest of it.

Getting the cake out of the pan was a bit of a challenge – I had buttered the pan (which was nonstick, by the way) AND used parchment, but it took a bit of doing to kind of un-stick the bottom corners from the pan – where the parchment met the sides – but it all came out beautifully once I gently pried all around the interior edges with my plastic spreader. It stayed together as I up-ended it onto my outstretched palm and arm and onto the cake plate it went (this, all when it was cooled).

They didn’t suggest serving it with anything, but I thought a bit of whipped cream with some almond extract in it was appropriate, and it certainly added to the intense almond flavor, but the cake, all by itself, is intensely almond-y already.

What’s GOOD: this will be the last almond cake recipe I’ll ever need to try. It’s THAT good. I loved the tender cake (texture) since many almond cakes are a bit on the firm side. Not this one – truly tender. And since I’m a big almond lover anyway, the amount of almond flavor (from the almonds themselves and from a little bit of almond extract added) it was just perfect. I highly recommend it. I also loved the addition of the whipped cream flavored with almond extract. Yummy.

What’s NOT: nothing other than the cost of almonds these days. This recipe is a keeper.

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Every so often I tell you – MAKE THIS. Here’s one of those occasions. It may not look all that special, but if you’ve read my blog long enough to trust my advice, then this is a dessert you need to make.

A few weeks ago I had a luncheon at my house. It was a fund-raising event for my P.E.O. chapter. I do some kind of an event every year and ladies in my P.E.O. sisterhood sign up and pay money to come to my house for whatever it is I’ve organized. The money is donated to the chapter (and money sent to Cottey College, in Iowa, to help support that small, but growing women’s college). Another sister had suggested that I borrow a DVD from her from her collection of The Great Courses. Renowned lecturers and professors present 45+ minute videos about a variety of things, from history, to science, to literature. Alice had recommended I look at the history segments and choose one that the group (10 of us) would watch.

So, I planned the lunch. I chose a video about the far-reaching effects of the Opium Wars of the 1600s (which affected world trade and still does today). I’d intended to choose something about American history, but found the Opium War one a bit more interesting. Nevertheless, I planned a menu revolving around old-American recipes. Months before my co-hostess and I divided up the food to prepare and invitations sent out, etc. Then, bless her heart, Linda, got sick and ended up in the hospital, so I hosted the event alone and doing all the food. I was a bit pooped-out by the end of the day, I’ll tell you! My friend is doing okay, is home and now taking new heart medication.

After watching the video, I did a sherry tasting. Staying true to the old-America theme, I knew that gentile women, back in the 1800s would only have partaken of sherry in the “drawing room” or the “parlour.” So I dug out some small liqueur glasses (at one time, years ago, I had some sherry glasses, but I don’t know what happened to them). I bought a bottle of sherry for this, but then thought – oh, I should look in my liquor closet and see what I have. Hmmm. Nothing less than 7 bottles of varying types of sherry. Two duplicates too! I do use sherry in cooking, and sometimes the recipe will call for very dry, or medium, or amontillado, or fino, etc. One of my PEO sisters helped me with the pouring while I worked a bit in the kitchen. Anyway, we progressed from very dry, to Bristol Cream and everything in between. Most of them had never tasted the different types, so they learned something. And definitely it needed to be Spanish sherry. During early America days, sherry was brought across the sea in huge casks on ships.

We sat down for the lunch, and I explained to everyone about the history of Country Captain, the main dish I had decided to make and one I posted about in 2010. It’s a chicken stew, of sorts, that originated in India, but came to the Americas via Savannah. It’s a mild curry dish loaded with bell peppers and onions, then topped with condiments (this time I used toasted coconut, toasted almonds and fresh bananas). It’s served over white rice.

Then I served this dessert. It originally appeared in a cookbook called Miss Leslie’s Complete Cookery (published in 1837) and Tori Avey, a food blogger, mostly of old time American recipe, knows from her copious research, that Mary Todd Lincoln bought the cookbook (some archive actually has the receipt of the purchase), and since it may have been her only cookbook (such books were few and far between back then) it’s assumed that either she (or the family cook) would have prepared this apple dish for the President for sure. I read Tori’s blog post to my group.

And everyone raved about it. Did I say several people asked if they could lick the plate? They did ask, but of course, no one did. I wanted to also. I’m so happy I still have a serving left which I’ll enjoy today sometime. WITH the little bit of nutmeg-almond-cream poured over it.

What’s GOOD: this dessert is just unctuous. I don’t use that word much, so you can take that to mean it’s something very special. It’s soft and warm and comforting and ever-so American like apple pie, but without all the fat from a pie crust. Do serve it with the nutmeg enhanced cream. It almost “made” the dish IMHO.

What’s NOT: it takes a bit of time to peel and slice 11 apples, but it’s SO worth the time in doing so. A real keeper of a recipe.

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Oh, what a lovely slice of deliciousness. Coconut flavor in the bread and on the top, and lemon caramel drizzled over the top. This one’s really, really good!

One of my book clubs came to my house awhile back, and not only did I review a book (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel by Rachel Joyce), but I also needed to prepare some mid-morning food for everyone who came. We had a really interesting discussion about this book. It’s one of my favorite books I’ve read in the last couple of years and I think this book “experience” was enhanced by a group discussion.

I made coffee, had fresh fruit, some Biscoff cookies, this bread, and also some chocolate/banana small cake bites too. I’ll write up the cake recipe too – soon. When everyone left, I packaged up everything and put it in a big ziploc bag in the freezer for my Scrabble group that came to my house a couple of weeks later. But I’ll tell you – I had a hard time staying out of that bag during the ensuing weeks because I wanted some of this bread.

The recipe – I read about it on Orangette, but it comes from a book titled Lemons by Alison Roman (not available at amazon). I’ll need to frequent some used book stores to see if I can find it. You can buy it from the publisher for $14, (which seems pricey for a 48 page cookbook), so I’d like to find a used copy if I can do so. I have a couple of lemon cookbooks, but if this recipe is any representation of what’s contained in that cookbook, then I need to own it!

The recipe is just slightly different than most tea bread recipes, in that it uses coconut oil (melted). And it does have a coconut topping that’s baked along with the bread. Then you make a lemon juice mixture to go on top. Here’s where my cooking went off the track (in a good way). I set the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan on the stove, then walked 10 feet away and began working on something here at my computer. I lost track of time, and the aroma of lemon juice/sugar didn’t seem to alert me that I needed to get back to it. When I finally smelled it, I dashed over to the stove and discovered that the mixture had turned to a light brown caramel. I didn’t want to make another batch, so I just used it anyway – I used a spoon to drizzle the lemon-caramel over the top of the finished bread. It was a delightful change/mistake that I’ll probably do the next time I make it, so I’ve included it in my recipe below. It gave it a lovely crunch, in addition to the unsweetened coconut flakes that were also slightly crunchy.

What’s GOOD: the coconut and lemon flavors are prominent (which I liked). There isn’t much of anything made with lemon that I don’t like, but this tea cake is particularly good, and I want to bake it again, because I didn’t have enough of it the first time around.

What’s NOT: not a single thing. Worth making for sure.

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What’s there not to like about apple comfort food in a cobbler? This one’s made with brown sugar, which gives it almost a caramel flavor, and the biscuits on top are also made with brown sugar.

Recently I’d been looking through my to-try recipes, and decided I really needed to try this one – an apple cobbler made with brown sugar. And truly, this one has some very different flavors. The apples are cooked a bit in a big pan with butter and brown sugar added in, plus a bit of flour and cinnamon. The mixture has a butterscotch or caramel flavor. Granny Smith apples hold their shape, so this cobbler doesn’t disintegrate to applesauce. The recipe comes from Jennifer’s Bake or Break blog. She used different apples (Gala and Pink Lady) but I prefer Granny’s when I’m making a cobbler.

Once the apples are cooked a bit in that mixture (see photo) they’re poured into the baking dish. They’re not cooked through at all, but they have a lovely ooey-gooey wet brown sugar glaze all over them.

I could hardly not sample a piece of apple – the brown sugar, butter and cinnamon mixture makes them taste wonderful. I already knew this was going to be a great treat.

Then the biscuits needed to be made. They’re a standard kind of biscuit recipe but it does use only brown sugar, so they have a darker color from the get-go. They’re moistened with butter, milk and sour cream.

I plopped the biscuit mixture by small amounts (I used a cookie scoop so they’d be uniform in size) on top of the apples. There’s a photo of the baking dish before I put it in the oven.

The oven temp is 400° F. I think if I made these again I would reduce it to 375° only because the biscuits get very dark colored. They weren’t burned at all – the brown sugar gives them that color, but I think they wouldn’t have gotten quite so firm on the top. Just a thought.

I made this a few hours ahead of time, but it was still a little bit warm when we served it, along with scoops of vanilla ice cream. Yum.

What’s GOOD: as I said, comfort food for sure. Loved the caramely, butterscotchy taste to the apples. I think the dish needs more apples, so I’ve upped the number in the recipe below – but I didn’t increase the other ingredients. I think there is enough of the brown sugar mixture to cover 2 more apples. It was really delicious. Everybody loved it, and especially with the ice cream along with it.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of. It’s a great recipe. Thanks to Jennifer at Bake or Break.

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That photo doesn’t do this justice. What more decadent could a dessert be with chocolate, creamy stuff, and tres leches sauce made into a tiramisu? Oh my goodness, is this dessert ever fantastic.

A disclaimer here, I haven’t actually made this – it’s from a class with Phillis Carey, who, besides being the queen of chicken breasts, also must be the crowned head of tiramisu, because she’s created so many different varieties of tiramisu I’ve lost count.

At the Diva Queens class last month, in San Diego, when Phillis and Diane Phillips did a double cooking class, Phillis prepared this dessert. It was one of the last things we had, and everyone was full, but oh gosh, was it worth every single mouthful? Yes, indeed. Make this if you have the occasion.

During some parts of the year, Trader Joe’s sells the cake-like ladyfingers – that’s what you want for this. Not the dried Italian-style ones. Lots of grocery stores carry them too – Phillis always explains that when TJ’s has them, she buys a dozen boxes and stores them in her freezer. I think I have 2 boxes down in the wine cellar. They could be all dried up by now. I suppose I should check one of these days.

The hardest part of making a tiramisu is assembling all the ingredients. Do make that effort first – get everything all set with the ingredients and the dessert dish you’ll use, etc. Then once you start, it all comes together in a jiffy. Then you must let it refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight might be easier. A special occasion dessert, for sure.

This version uses a chocolate-cream-Kahlua mixture to moisten the ladyfingers. You can’t really taste the Kahlua – coffee just accents the chocolate, really. But it provides the liquor zing. Mascarpone cheese is mixed up into the “Cinnamon Cream” (sweetened condensed milk, whipping cream, cinnamon and vanilla) mixture. And those are layered in the dessert dish. That’s all there is to it – decorate the top with chocolate curls and chill. You’ll hear raves, I’m positive, unless you’re serving this to someone who doesn’t like chocolate or cream!

What’s GOOD: what’s there not to like about tiramisu? Really! It’s a wonderful dessert, and decadent for sure, so only make this for a special occasion. It’s chocolaty, creamy, Kahlua-y, and everything delicious.

What’s NOT: can’t think of anything, other than you do need to make this 4 hours ahead or the day before.

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It was a few weeks ago – we had our dinner group here at my house. I selected a menu of “fall favorites,” and asked everyone to bring a part of the meal. This is about the delicious pumpkin dessert Dianne brought.

I was going through recipes online, following all the blogs I read, and ran across this one and thought, hmmm, that sounds so good. Dianne loves to make desserts . . .. maybe she’d like to try this. So I sent her the link and suggested it as a dessert for our group. As she explained that night of our dinner, she follows directions well. If I ask, she assumes I’m telling her she has to make this, so she did. She wasn’t all that enamored with it, but everyone else at the table thought it was wonderful. She said it was kind of fussy. We said oh, but it’s really tasty. She said it’s actually kind of healthy. We said, really? We couldn’t tell. It was rich and decadent. The angel food cake cubes gave it a kind of light texture. Good texture. Dianne likes bread pudding, but had never made one with angel food cake cubes, so she doomed it to failure because of it. We all thought it was really great, and if it was a bit lower in calorie than some desserts, all the better. We made up for it with the whipped cream we put on top, probably.

The recipe came from pastrychefonline – a Jenni Field recipe. And I’d definitely make this – it satisfied my hankering for pumpkin, and I liked the fluffy texture. You mix up a pumpkin and egg mixture (a custard) and then toss it with toasted angel food cake cubes, then bake in a water bath. The recipe suggested serving it warm, but we had it at room temp and thought it was just fine. Loved the candied pecans on top – use your own simple recipe, just add a bit of pumpkin pie spice to the mixture if you can – it gives the pecans a totally different taste and a good match with this dessert. Thanks, Dianne, for making this, even if you weren’t all that crazy about it – we thought it was great!

What’s GOOD: the pumpkin flavor, of course – it’s nice to have it in something other than pumpkin pie; the texture – we all liked the lightness of it – it’s nothing like the texture of a pie – more like a light pudding, and nothing like a bread pudding either (which is heavy and dense). This was light and almost fluffy, but not quite. The crunch of the candied pecans added a nice touch. And then, well, whipped cream. That cut the richness of it.

What’s NOT: Dianne thought the recipe was more work than she liked – you do have to toast the angel food cake cubes, and using a water bath isn’t exactly every cook’s idea of  fun. But the pumpkin custard part is easy to mix up. Then you do want to make some toasted pecans – that’s another step. So, yes, I guess there are several steps to this and perhaps a big pile of dirty dishes too. But worth it.

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Not such an attractive looking dessert, but oh my, is it ever good. Maple syrup heads the line-up of ingredients and its flavor dominates, in a good way.

Not so long ago I was at a Phillis Carey cooking class, and she explained that she’d been on a cruise in Canada and was served this dessert, a French dessert, more than once and when she got home she played around with it, keeping true to the original concept recipe, and created this that’s mostly like a cake, but it has this wonderful maple sauce it makes as it bakes. You’ve had pudding-cakes before, I’m sure. I have a bunch here on my blog, my favorites being a Lemon Sponge Pudding, a Sticky Chocolate Sponge Pudding, and lastly a Warm Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake. If you go to my recipe index page for Desserts, scroll almost to the bottom and you’ll find a listing of the various pudding cakes I’ve made over the years. The Gingerbread one is awfully good too.

This recipe uses darker maple syrup (meaning it has a more intense, darker flavor, the darker always better in my book), plus cream, and mostly other standard baking ingredients, and it goes together quite quickly. This is an intensely flavored pudding cake – the maple flavor predominates, but it’s also very, very sweet. I didn’t make this myself, just ate it at Phillis’ cooking class, but when I make it I’m going to reduce the sugar by about half. There’s not much sugar in it – 1/3 cup – the sweet comes mostly from the maple syrup – but I’d definitely use less and see how it turned out. If you don’t mind the sweet (almost made my teeth ache) by all means use the full 1/3 cup. You need all the maple syrup because it is integral to the sauce portion. And whatever you do, DON’T substitute cheap “breakfast syrup” for the maple syrup. This is a time when you must use the real thing.

The maple syrup mixture (a cream-based concoction) is mixed up and half poured into an 8×8 glass dish. Then the batter is made – it’s  wet batter sort of like pancakes, I suppose – and you use a spoon to scoop big portions or mounds into the dish (six of them), then you pour the remaining maple mixture on top and bake it. Once baked, you do want to let it sit just a bit – that maple syrup would be VERY hot – it would burn your mouth if you ate it immediately. Serve warm with whipped cream or a dollop of crème fraîche on top. Likely you’ll hear raves and mmmm’s around the table.

What’s GOOD: the intense maple flavor is the first thing you’ll notice – it’s so good warm – do serve it that way. But I don’t imagine left overs would be bad even at room temp, either. It’s comfort food at it’s French Canadian best!

What’s NOT: nothing really – just read my note about reducing the sugar – it’s very sweet. Not good for anyone who’s averse to sugar!

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Oh my yes! Will you please make this? Soon. Super chocolate flavor, but tempered by the coconut on it and the coconut oil in it. A fabulous and easy dessert.

It’s true. I do love baking, but you’ll see that I have all kinds of other things on my blog too – meats, veggies, appetizers. All manner of things. But I suppose if I had to say, baking is my favorite thing to do. And since Dave, my DH, passed away (it’s now been a year and 8 months), I don’t entertain as much, and my dinner menus are more simple. I eat lots of left overs. But my Bible study group comes to my house frequently, so that satisfies my need for baking. And that’s what happened a week or so ago when I decided to make this.

The recipe came from Bon Appetit, in 2014. It’s baked in an 8-inch loaf pan – recently I actually measured my bread pans and was surprised to find that my smallest one is actually closer to 9” instead of 8” so I bought a new one. This new one, though, is almost smaller than 8”. So this cake almost bubbled over the top. Just so you know. If you use a 9” pan, the baking time will be different, and it won’t be as high, obviously.

What’s different about this cake is the use of coconut oil – not the liquid type (is there a liquid type?) but the congealed type (that’s called virgin coconut oil) that almost has the consistency of shortening. It gets mixed with sugar, then with eggs and it whizzes up in the stand mixer until it has a very light, but thick consistency. Billowy almost, but not quite. Then you mix in the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, salt, and baking powder) in additions along with buttermilk. Into the baking pan it goes – with waxed paper carefully placed inside so you can use it as a sling to remove the cake from the pan. You use a spatula to make a groove down the middle – an important step. Even so, my cake almost spilled over. You can’t quite see it in the photos, but one side had a big bulge – I cut it off and ate it, thank you. Yum.

There on the right you can see the groove I made. Since the pan was so full I had difficulty doing it, and the batter was wet enough that it kind of oozed back into the center as soon as I’d done it. But do try. Then you add on the toppings (granulated sugar and unsweetened coconut). Into the oven it went and it baked for 80 minutes (recipes says 70-80, but mine took the full 80) until a tester inserted in the middle came out clean.

Then it’s left out to rest and cool for at least 20 minutes (I think mine cooled for an hour or so – made for easier handling), then cooled completely on a rack for another hour or two. Picture at left is the batter with the toppings, ready to go into the oven.

What’s GOOD: the chocolate flavor is absolutely wonderful (I used Hershey’s Dark cocoa), and it’s super moist. Easy to slice too, with a serrated knife. The recipe indicated it serves 8, but I got about 11 slices from mine. I served it with sweetened whipped cream. Everybody loved it. I loved it. Can’t wait to have a slice after lunch or dinner today. Or, maybe I’ll have a slice with a cup of tea this afternoon. It’s also very easy to make. The recipe says it will keep for 5 days, wrapped well, at room temp. I guarantee you it won’t last that long.  The coconut flavor is enough that you DO taste it in the cake (from using the oil). I liked the flavor a lot.

What’s NOT: nothing whatsoever. It’s a great dessert cake.

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There’s a thing that happens to bloggers. Well, at least THIS blogger. When I can’t WAIT to get to my computer to write up a post about a recipe, you can pretty well be assured it’s a winner of a dish. I haven’t exactly felt that way about any recipe I’ve made in the recent past. But oh, this one, yes indeedy! A winner. Apples cloaked in the lightest of crispy crusts. Serve warm. To raves.

The day I made this I was a bit frazzled. I’ve been that way a lot as the workers are finishing up the work I’ve had done to my house. I’m so ready to have them be gone-gone. I want peace and quiet – not just at 7 am when they show up – but all day long. As I write this they’re finishing up the roofing. The compressor runs pretty much all day long. Shorting out things, tripping the circuit breakers. It’s all very frustrating. My pool filters were off for days and I didn’t even realize it. Vigilance is the word of the day. The word of the hour. Our neighborhood had a power outage the other night (nothing to do with the work at my house since this was at about 8pm), for about 30 minutes. I was watching TV, and grabbed my iPad mini, opened up the lid and it provided enough light so I could locate the flashlight. Some candles were lit. That tripped some breakers too. More frustration.

Anyway, I have 2 ladies that come to clean my house every 2 weeks. I’m grateful for that. Ever so grateful. But if they come later than usual, then they’re still cleaning the kitchen when I need to be in there (they arrive about 2:30 pm and are here for about 3 hours). This week they were later than that, and I was already behind schedule to prepare a dessert for my bible study group. I didn’t start on it until 6:10 and my guests were arriving at 7:00. Oh my. The cleaning ladies were still cleaning the far side of my kitchen as I began work on this. I whipped out my 8-inch springform pan, madly peeled 4 apples (the recipe calls for Granny Smith, but I had 2 of those and 2 other kinds). The apples are tossed with a bit of sugar and lemon juice, then poured into the springform pan. Meanwhile, you mix eggs, sugar and almond extract. That gets mixed until the batter is very light and ribbony, which takes about 10-11 minutes. I did that while I was prepping the apples. The batter is spread on top. The recipe said to let it sit for 5 minutes to allow the batter to ooze down into the apple layers, but I had no time for that, so I just rapped the pan on the countertop a few times and watched as the batter moved some. Into a 350° oven it went.

It bakes for an hour – a long time considering the apples were thinly sliced, but I trusted the recipe (it was in Food & Wine, and is credited to Matt Danko, a superlative chef – he used to be in Cleveland). Anyway, this recipe is his Russian father’s (I love to read about recipes with that kind of heritage).

I allowed it to cool for about 15 minutes maximum, because my guests had arrived and my dessert wasn’t ready. No worries, I served it warm as we sat at my dining room table discussing the history of Paul (Romans). It needed not a smidgen of any garnish – I didn’t have enough ice cream, nor enough cream to whip, so I served it as is, plain and simple. Oh-la-la.

What’s GOOD: everything. All of it – flavor, texture, toothsomeness, sweet, tart. The top is a wonderful thin crispy crust – you top it with some powdered sugar – and some of the batter does ooze down inside. It actually oozed clear to the bottom in some places. It was easy to cut, and everyone liked it for sure. I’d definitely make this one again. It’s also VERY easy. It couldn’t have taken me more than 15 minutes total to put it together, maybe less. The oven had just reached temperature when I put it in. Do let it sit, and do serve it warm. It’s also relatively low in calorie – 200 calories per serving.

What’s NOT: I can’t think of a single thing I didn’t like about it. The original article in the magazine suggested you’d never want for another apple dessert after you’ve had this one. I tend to agree! The left overs lost their crispy crust – so try to eat it all up in the first sitting.

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Last hurrah with peaches, made into a lovely cake style tea cake.

This could be made with any variety of stone fruit (apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums), but it was featured in Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More, the cookbook, and made with peaches. Remember, I acquired the cookbook recently. The one I said I didn’t need, but wanted anyway. And this is another winner of a recipe.

Tea cake has many meanings, depending on where you live in the world! In England a tea cake is more of a bread, sometimes with fruit and some made with yeast, but often are made into snacks or sandwiches. In Sweden it’s a soda bread to serve warm with butter and jam. In Australia and India it’s more of a sponge cake and IS served with TEA! And here in the U.S. if you’re having a tea cake in the South, it’s more like a cookie – a dense, large cookie. But elsewhere in the U.S. it’s a single-layer spiced cake. Really, I’d say this cake I made doesn’t qualify as any of those, but then I didn’t name it.

My bible study group was coming over, so it was a good occasion to bake something. I surely wouldn’t have wanted this whole cake for just me to eat, because I would have eaten it!

It was easy enough to prepare – butter and sugar are beaten together until light, eggs added in, then the dry ingredients. Only one different technique – the batter was quite sticky at that point (almost like the consistency of a cookie dough) and you stick it in the freezer for 30 minutes. That firmed up the tacky feeling and was enough to allow you to handle the dough without most of it sticking to your fingers. Half is pressed into the bottom of a 10 inch spring form pan. Then the fresh peaches are cut. I threw in a little splash of Amaretto – but actually that made the fruit too wet, I think. I won’t do that next time. Then with the remaining dough/batter, you break off little tablespoon-sized pieces of stick them all over the top. They spread out, as you can see from the picture with just an occasional peach peeking through – it makes for a pretty look. It’s baked for 30-40 minutes (and mine probably should have baked a little bit longer as the dough was a tiny bit gooey in the middle). I think I will increase the baking time of this by about 5 minutes – the top should be just golden brown. Do serve it warm, and do serve it with either pouring cream, whipped cream or ice cream. I think it needs it. It’s not overly sweet, thankfully, but it’s a cake, not a fruit torte.

What’s GOOD: the yummy peaches in a nice, warm cake. I served it with heavy cream to pour over. Very delicious. It is more cake than it is fruit, just so you know. I used 4 fairly smallish peaches (it calls for 2 1/2 cups of sliced peaches) and maybe it could have been more, but that would also increase the baking time.

What’s NOT: it’s only as good as the peaches you use in it – use nice, ripe, juicy ones only. It’s fairly easy, so I had no complaints with the making of it at all.

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