Pumpkin-Pecan-Bourbon Cake

This year's Thanksgiving marks one of the few where I sat at a real dining table, lines of silverware wedged between birch sprigs and butter dishes. Normally, due to the overflow of relatives (honorary and blood), most of my generation is relegated to the kids table. There, we tuck our legs under ourselves and crowd plates onto a coffee table set up just far enough from the grownups that we hear only snatches of wine-warmed conversation (always our names, never the context in which they arise). Now, as new families spring up and smart new careers solidify, people are sent off and away from the Midwest that knitted our friendships and felt our first steps. So we represent the holiday's missing attendees in toasts and scattered updates offered throughout the evening. And each explanation for someone's absence is relayed in a slightly different manner depending on who tells the story, so that by the night's end, no one is terribly clear about what anyone is doing, but they're well assured that those who are absent have got themselves perfectly situated. They're also represented in recollections of Thanksgivings past, to which we'll add this one, remembering only the good parts and forgetting that we really ought to double the batch of gravy next year.

So we were a small group. But a small group is no reason not to make a tall, tall cake. A tall cake of pumpkin and pecan and most of the spice rack's contents, crowned with a bourbon glaze and more pecans. There will leftover glaze—eat it on everything. Prepare to gather and use a lot of ingredients, including what I believe amounts to an entire bag of brown sugar. But you'll be pleased with the result. As will the rest of the party, whatever their number. 

Adapted from Fine Cooking's Pumpkin-Pecan Cake with Brown Sugar and Bourbon Glaze

Pumpkin-Pecan-Bourbon Cake

Ingredients:

For cake

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour (plus a little extra for the pan)

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. ginger

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (plus a little extra for the pan)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups brown sugar

4 large eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk

3 TBSP bourbon

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 15-oz can pumpkin puree

1 cup pecan halves, toasted and chopped

For candied pecans

2 TBSP brown sugar

1 TBSP honey

3/4 cup pecans, roughly chopped

For glaze

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 TBSP corn syrup

1 1/2 TBSP bourbon

1/3 cup light whipping cream

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1/8 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

Make the Cake

--Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10- to 12-cup bundt or tube pan. 

--Mix together dry ingredients. In a large bowl, cream together butter, oil, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. In a measuring cup, stir together buttermilk, bourbon, and vanilla extract.

--Add flour and buttermilk mixtures to the butter batter, alternating between dry and wet. Stir in pumpkin puree and pecans with a wooden spoon or spatula. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a knife stuck into the cake's center comes out clean. 

--Let cake cool in pan for at least 15 minutes. Slide a knife between the cake's edge and the pan and invert onto a plate, removing the pan very slowly and gently.

Make Candied Pecans (this can be done while the cake bakes).

--Cook brown sugar, honey, and 1 TBSP water in a small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add pecans and stir to coat. Cook on medium-low heat for 15 minutes or until pecans are shiny and most of the sugar mixture clings to the pecans.

Make the Glaze (again, this can be done while the cake bakes)

--To a medium saucepan, add the brown sugar, butter, corn syrup, bourbon, and salt. Cook over medium heat until butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Pour in the cream and boil for one minute, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and whisk in sugar and extract, stirring until mixture is smooth. Let stand three to eight minutes: glaze should be thick, but pourable.

Assemble

--Scatter candied pecans across the top of the cake. Using a skewer, poke holes into the cake's sides. Pour the glaze over the cake, letting it run down the sides and into the tunnels created by the skewer. Keep any extra glaze for spooning onto individual slices. 

Pumpkin Petit Fours

I used to pore over King Arthur catalogs, from the 'Sir Lancelot' flour mixture (what made this flour so heroic I'm not sure—the name alone merited it a penciled star in the catalog) to a selection of whisks, from wee ones  to giant, balloon-shaped mixers. Many of their products have somewhat narrow uses, but I found a strong sense of possibility in paging through the gadgets and ingredients. Pizza-sized spatulas! Monochromatic sugar-dusted cookies! Finally, armed with a generous gift card to the mail-order service (a trip to the Vermont retail store and bakery, alas, is yet to come together), I bought the following: a bundt pan that made six perfect maple leaf-shaped cakes. Only terribly useful for one season out of the four. But such perfectly shaped cakes!

This recipe, sans pan, is infinitely more flexible. You do not need a maple-leaf pan to make this cake successful—far from it. In fact, it's quite the pain to clean (all those leaf tendons), although the result is rather pretty. I've made this cake in a few forms, and it always turns out very tasty. You'll just want to increase the baking time and dip the knife in warm water between slices. When properly baked, the cake's top forms a shiny, near gooey layer. No frosting needed. Just pumpkin, spiked by cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg—all the good stuff you'd expect in a fall dessert. 

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Pumpkin Cupcakes
Pumpkin Petit Fours
Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground gloves
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk (I didn't have any, so I made sour milk: 1/2 TBSP apple cider vinegar mixed with enough milk to make 1/2 cup of liquid)
1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin

Directions:
--Cream together butter and sugars. In another bowl, mix together dry ingredients. Whisk eggs into butter mixture and then add flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating between the two as you mix. Add pumpkin and stir until fully combined.
--Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with muffin cups or grease an 8x8-inch or 9x13-inch pan. Pour batter into the pan(s). Bake 12 minutes for muffins, 18 minutes for 9x13-inch pan, and 20 minutes for 8x8-inch pan.

Meyer Lemon Crumb Cake

Get your summer in a cake, right here. With tangy crumbs, citrus-spiked icing, and streusel so buttery it's evocative of pie crust, there's an element to please every dessert eater. Meyer lemons forego the wincing tartness of their regular counterparts, so they're milder, but still inject a refreshing, sour-sweet shot. The cake itself has three parts and one quirk. You've got the batter, streusel, and icing. Then you've got the lemons, which undergo a quick boil and some time to rest before they're layered straight onto the cake. (The original recipe says to leave the skins on, but after test-tasting one and finding it required too vigorous a chew, I opted for removing them.) 

I made the cake to round out a Fourth of July dinner with my relatives. We supped on caprese stacks and shaved asparagus salad before clearing our big plates and replacing them with the little frilly-edged paper ones that signal dessert (always ice cream, along with any accompaniment I contribute) is at hand. It was the sort of dinner that spanned a veritable range of topics, from the FIFA World Cup to neighborhood news, to The New Yorker recommended reads, where you get the sense that everyone left the table having said a little bit of what they wanted to say, and having learned a little bit of something new. They also left the table with plates quite clean, save for the crumbs of a graciously devoured cake. 

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake
Meyer Lemon Crumb Cake
Ingredients:
For Struesel:
1 3/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold.

For Cake:
5 Meyer lemons, cut into thin slices and ends discarded
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
zest from 5 Meyer lemons
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream (you can substitute yogurt or buttermilk if you like)

For Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
juice from 5 Meyer lemons

Directions:
--Make streusel. Mix together dry ingredients. Cut butter into small chunks and stir into flour mixture, using a pastry cutter, two knives, or your fingers to mix in the butter. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
--Fill a medium saucepan a third of the way with water and bring to a simmer. Cook the lemon slices in simmering water for one minute. Drain the water, re-fill the pan, and repeat. Arrange lemons in a single layer on parchment or waxed lined sheet. When cool enough to touch, remove lemon flesh from the rind.
--Make the batter. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-inch bundt pan. Mix together flour, powder, soda, and salt. In a medium bowl, cream together butter, sugar, zest, and vanilla. Once well incorporated, add eggs one at a time. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the sour cream.
--Pour half the batter into the prepared pan, and layer on half the lemons. Spread the rest of the batter in the pan, topping with remaining lemons. Sprinkle with streusel, using your fingers to pinch some of the mixture into big clumps. Bake 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the cake's center comes out clean.
--While the cake cools, make the icing. Sift powdered sugar over a bowl filled with the lemon juice and stir; icing should be fairly runny. When the cake has cooled for at least 10 minutes, pour on the icing.

Brown Butter-Pecan-Cornmeal Cake

This cake is a stunner, though certainly not in aesthetics. What it lacks in beauty or height, however, it more than makes up for in flavor. Let me briefly cover its crowning attributes: buttery notes, paired with the crunch of the toasted pecans and the textured cornmeal batter; it's a sweet-salty combo almost reminiscent of salted caramel. It's a soft cake, better served piece by piece than taken to a potluck, but it won't take long to finish with a couple willing tasters, as I had this past weekend. You'll want some too; I needed a few volunteers so I didn't end up standing alone by the kitchen counter, working through the entire pan with a fork. 

The batter does spend three hours (or an overnight stay) in the fridge, so plan accordingly. It also uses four egg whites, leaving you with a handful of unused yolks. I admit the whole process seems involved for the production of so homely a cake. But the taste supersedes a number of mile-high, filled-and-frosted cakes I've had, so don't let your eyes convince you otherwise, and start separating those eggs. 

From Smitten Kitchen's Pecan Butter Cornmeal Cake

Brown Butter-Pecan-Cornmeal Cake
Ingredients:
9 TBSP unsalted butter
1/2 cup pecans
1 cup powdered sugar
2 TBSP granulated sugar
3 TBSP unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
7 TBSP yellow cornmeal
1/4 tsp. salt
4 egg whites (save yolks for custard)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Directions:
--Toast pecans. Spread in a single layer on an ovenproof pan and bake for 4 minutes at 375 degrees F. Check often to make sure they don't burn; the pecans should break easily when they're properly toasted. Chop once cool enough to touch.

--To brown butter, melt the butter in a small pan until it is dark gold and lightly bubbling, 6-8 minutes. Set aside to cool. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together pecans, sugars, flower, baking powder, cornmeal, and salt. In another bowl, stir together egg whites and vanilla just until combined—no need to whip the egg whites. Add to the flour-sugar mixture along with the cooled butter, and stir to combine. Refrigerate three hours or overnight.

--When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Pour patter into a 8-inch square or 9-inch round cake pan. Bake until a knife comes out clean, or 20-25 minutes.

Note: The way I prepared this recipe, I served pieces directly from the pan. If you want to turn the cake out of the pan and serve on a platter, Smitten Kitchen suggests the following directions: Use a 9-inch tart or springform pan; and butter the sides and line the bottom with parchment paper before adding batter. Once baked, let cool 10 to 15 minutes before inverting onto a plate.

Chocolate Cake

Sometimes, a good chocolate cake is what's needed. And that's precisely what I've got here. It's a simple recipe that achieves a simple goal—putting chocolate cake in your kitchen. This may very well be a cake you've seen, and hopefully tasted, before, but it bears repeating, re-making, and rejoicing. For it is just that good. And it's a handy recipe to have in your back pocket, or recipe chest, or bookmarked, or whatever method you use to log in-a-pinch recipes.

The cake's simplicity comes from its oil base and substitution of vinegar and baking soda, in place of eggs. It's a one bowl deal, and it also happens to be vegan. The frosting, which is not at all vegan, does add a couple extra steps. It wants for a double boiler, creating more dishes than one might prefer, but you can find your own frosting of choice or even skip it altogether. It's the cake part of this cake that reigns supremely chocolate. 

From Moosewood's Six-Minute Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Layer Cake
Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups cold coffee
4 tsp. vanilla extract
4 TBSP cider vinegar

Directions:
--Grease and flour two 9-inch round or 8-inch squash cake pans. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
--In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar. Add in the oil, coffee and vanilla together and stir to combine. Stir in the vinegar just until combined: a few pale streaks from the vinegar may remain.
--Pour batter into pans, distributing as equally between the two as possible. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool 15 minutes before removing from pans.

Chocolate Glaze
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. semi-sweet chocolate
3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions
--Melt chocolate in a double boiler or microwave, taking care not to burn if using the latter. Stir in milk and vanilla until smooth. Let cool slightly.
--To assemble cake, carefully invert one layer onto a serving plate. Pour half the glaze on top, smoothing with a spatula to the edges of the cake. Place the second layer on top and pour on the rest of the glaze, letting it run down the sides. Cool completely before serving.

Squash Cake

Photo by squash cake partner in crime Maraia B.

This cake, I reckon, is worthy of diverting from (or adding to) your list of traditional Thanksgiving desserts. Of course, you might be unwilling to make room amongst the apple, pumpkin, and pecan delicacies your family has come to love and expect (and I quite understand: the year without apple crisp was tough to get through). In this case, the cake serves equally well as a pre- or post- Thanksgiving snack. The cake absorbs the squash, using it less for flavor than for developing a light, moist crumb that permits consumption of several slices. And so it offers a nice bite to nibble during the cooking process (sturdy slices are easy to pop into one's mouth between stirs of the gravy's roux), or as a Black Friday morning treat—either to munch on while you wait in line, or as an unexpected option amidst the counter's spread of Thanksgiving leftovers. It really fits into any category you might need a baked good for—the squash adds a deep yellow-orange color, making for a festive, comforting dessert.

Photo by Maraia B.

Photo by Maraia B.

All in all, the recipe is straightforward, but you'll want to have the squash roasted and mashed before beginning the rest of the cake, so I suggest planning for a longer afternoon baking binge, roasting the squash and storing extra portions in the freezer. In a pinch, canned pumpkin should work just fine. On this last note, any type of squash will give you a good cake. I used kabocha the first time and acorn the second (see photo below), and both were delicious.

Squash Cake
Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

2 large eggs 

1 6-oz. container greek yogurt
1/4 cup maple syrup

2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups mashed squash (whatever squash is on hand, or canned pumpkin)

Directions:
--In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. In a small bowl, mix yogurt, maple syrup, and vanilla together
--Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10-inch bundt pan.
--Add the flour and yogurt mixtures to the creamed butter, alternating between the two and mixing after each addition. Once incorporated, stir in squash. Pour batter into the pan. 
--Bake 40 minutes or until a knife inserted in the cake's center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife between the outside of the cake and the pan and invert onto a plate, carefully removing the pan. Let cool completely before serving.

Pumpkin Pecan Ripple Cake

It seems as though I've spent more time in the kitchen over the past two weeks then I have the entire summer. This is likely because I had a partner in crime (see below), but suffice to say, fall is my favorite time to cook. This may be partially because the idea of a warm oven grows more appealing in the colder weather. It might also be because historically there are many events this time of year that draw far flung friends and family into the kitchen and then around the dining room table. But I primarily chalk it up to the squash. Squash is both delicious and extremely versatile in its taste and cooking possibilities. It is filling, creamy, nutritious. I love the stuff.

A friend of mine, whose creativity and skill at cooking squash I can only aspire to, visited this weekend. We cooked a great deal, and of our desserts and other delicacies, about half involved squash. During her weeklong stay, two cakes, lasagna, ravioli, and a couple items I'm probably missing appeared on the counter (and, impressively, disappeared soon thereafter).

 

Cherry Cornmeal Upside Down Cake

My first, and only other, upside down cake took on the ubiquitous pineapple upside down. My pineapple chunks were huge, taking up nearly half the cake's height. I don't even recall what the cake tasted like, only that, overturned, it was crowned with these rocks of browning, stringy fruit.  So this recipe plays the role of cultivating a positive association with the topsy turvy dessert. The combination of cherries and cornmeal promised guaranteed success in the flavor department, and an appealingly purple topping. But the recipe posed an additional challenge.

When it comes to cakes, I am somewhat impatient. I can't play the waiting game while the cake cools. This means I upset the cakes from their pans before they're properly ready, and more than once, the result is half the cake on the plate and the other half clinging to the baking dish. A thick coating of frosting or an attempt to artfully present just half a cake ensues. But the key to the upside down cake really is offering the miracle of a dessert where the fruit topping oozes across the firm, sweet cake. So I managed to leave the cake alone (although I admit to occasional hovering and top-of-cake prodding) for a couple hours, until I was convinced it had properly cooled. I ended up with one whole cake, and one I'd be more than willing to make again. 

 

 I'd be happy to use this cake batter with any fruit and in any form: it is light, sweet, and utterly delicious. The bowl was scraped clean before it reached the dishwasher. The cornmeal is a delightful ping in a smooth batter lightened with egg whites. It also comes together quickly, while the cherries take ages to slice and pit. I used fresh Bing and recommend you take this route as well, as it is cherry season. I did not have a pan that was both oven and stove-proof, so my cooking process involved glazing the cherries in a pan with the sugar and butter and then transferring the mixture to the baking pan. If you do have a multipurpose pan (such as a cast iron skillet), I'd go ahead and use it. But the saucepan-to-casserole dish method works quite easily as well.

Pumpkin Praline Cake

This weekend was a cake-baking weekend. I visit my aunt and uncle a few times a month, and they always feed me so terribly well, I like to recompense them in some small way. And it usually ends up being the gift of cake. As well as the gift of a warm kitchen, aroma of cloves, and a pile of dishes (which I cleaned up, at some point). Sometimes I'll make dinner too, but this weekend was dedicated to the cake. Saturday night we had Thai take-out for dinner and pumpkin cake for dessert. It was an excellent combination. 

Eggs-no-more

If you need a cake for any reason, I suggest this Pumpkin Praline cake. It just needs pumpkin and pecans. And four eggs. And nearly every other ingredient in your pantry. It's also a cake in three parts: pumpkin cake, caramelly glaze and praline topping. This isn't a spur-of-the-moment cake, but it is time well spent (and the oven/stovetop use will warm up the house). The pecans take time on the stove and in the oven. The glaze is made stove-top. This is where the dishes come from.

The recipe my adaptation arose from calls for a bundt pan, but I split the batter into two nine-inch cake rounds. The result may not be quite so visually impressive, but it's more practical; easier to cut smaller pieces (to share more around, not because you'd really want a smaller piece) and more cake surface to receive the caramel. Even with two cakes, I still had leftover glaze. The glaze will also make an excellent dip for apples or ice cream topping, so no worries if you've got extra. Or just pour it all on the cake without reserve.

Adapted from Fine Cooking's Pumpkin-Pecan Cake

Pumpkin Praline Cake
Cake Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 15-oz can pumpkin puree*
1 cup pecan halves, toasted (I toasted them in a dry skillet for about 5 minutes)

Praline Ingredients:
2 TBSP packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp honey
3/4 cup pecan halves

Caramel Glaze Ingredients:
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 TBSP light corn syrup
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions for cake:
--Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans (square or round is fine).
--Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice and cloves. In a small bowl, mix together buttermilk and vanilla.
--Mix together butter and oil until well combined. Add sugar and beat until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in pumpkin.
--Pour buttermilk mixture into creamed batter and stir to combine. Add flour mixture and mix just until combined. Fold in pecans. Divide batter equally into bowl pans.
--Bake until a knife inserted into middle of cake comes out dry, about 40 minutes. Cool cakes in their pans for at least half an hour before removing.

Directions for pralines:
--Heat brown sugar, honey and 1 TBSP water in a small saucepan over medium heat. When sugar has dissolved, add pecans and stir until coated. Spread pecans on an oiled sheet and bake in the 350 oven until nuts are shiny, 7-10 minutes. Transfer pecans to a piece of parchment to cool, at least 20 minutes.

Directions for caramel glaze:
--In a large saucepan, stir together brown sugar, butter, corn syrup and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves, about two minutes. Add cream and raise heat to boiling; cook for one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and gently whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir until completely smooth.
--Let caramel stand until thick, three to eight minutes. Pour slowly and evenly over cakes while glaze is still warm. Top cake with candied pecans. Let glaze set at least 15 minutes before serving.

*I do use canned pumpkin. It simply packs a more pumpkin-y flavour than a pumpkin you baked and de-fleshed yourself. It is also less time consuming and tidier of course, but the best reason to use canned is that it'll give you a full pumpkin taste.

Peaches and Cream Cake

I don't usually make my own birthday cake. As a twin, I typically make one for my sister, and my mother makes one for me. But that's rather a lot of cake, so this year we decided just one in the house would suffice, and I volunteered to make the lone dessert. Unfortunately, it turns out this is bad birthday karma, because the cake-baking process was somewhat of a disaster. The cake was not completely baked through when I had to leave for my dentist's appointment (a dentist's appointment on my birthday? Why not.), and then the final product, while fully cooked, fell apart when I removed it from the pan. We served it sliced, candles stuck into our respective pieces, to save guests from murmuring about the cake's unusual appearance.

A buttered-and-floured-pan- not well greased enough, apparently!
Also uncharacteristic this year, I chose the cake recipe with little ado. Instead of scouring cookbooks and memories of past birthdays for a cake that encapsulates how I feel about the coming year, I found a recipe for Peaches and Cream Cake during an absent-minded flip through a cooking mag. It looked delicious and my sister had no objections, so down went peaches and sour cream on the grocery list.

I had to leave for the dentist even as batter still clung to the knife as it emerged from the monstrosity of a cake. Before heading out the door, I turned off the oven, leaving the cake in there to cook in the slowly dissipating heat. When I returned, the cake was fully cooked, but not cooled, and I was too eager in taking it out of the pan. Several chunks from the cake's top were torn away as it slid onto the plate. Note the convenient lack of pictures of the cake in its whole state. Luckily it tasted fine, particuarly when doctored up with some Haagen Dazs pistachio ice cream. Whipped cream would also do the trick, I think. Next time, I might add extra peaches as well. Despite being coated in flour, which should prevent the peaches from sinking to the bottom, most of the fruit was clustered in sections of the cake, leaving some batter-heavy parts.

This piece stayed whole!

Adapted from Everyday Food Magazine, Issue 93
Peaches and Cream Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups plus 2 TBSP unbleached all-purpose flour, divided
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 peaches, peeled, pitted and diced small
2 cups sugar
6 eggs, room temperature
1 1/4 cups sour cream
1 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:
--Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 14-cup bundt pan.
--Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. In a medium bowl, coat peaches in 2 TBSP flour. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy and pale yellow. Beat in eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in two parts, alternating with sour cream. Beat until combined. Add peaches and vanilla and mix gently. Pour batter into prepared pan, tapping pan firmly on counter to remove any air bubbles.
--Bake until a knife inserted in cake comes out clean, one hour. Transfer pan to wire rack. Let cool 30 minutes. Using a knife or offset spatula, loosen cake from pan and gently invert onto cake stand or plate. Serves 16.