Peach Butter Cake

Butter Cake
with Sunken Peach

Turns out that third time's a fail in my case. The recipe was for a simple butter cake with some peach pieces tossed in. I managed to make it very complicated and ended up with three different cakes. None of course being what I had planned for. Without a doubt Sweet Flukes will be the bulk of this post.

In my family we are all avid coffee drinkers. In the mornings we're on our own to get that coffee fix but as for the evenings, its a family ritual to always have a cup after dinner. Sweets are a must for these evening gatherings. Recently, my family in Guatemala shipped us some cake that I definitely plan to get the recipe for. The crumbly textured cake had this light buttery flavor that paired up perfectly with a dark cup of coffee. We loved this cake so much that in order to keep the peace my dad was literally rationing out the hidden stash. I decided to try and solve our shortage issue by giving the cake a shot. With a little added ingredient of peaches of course. 

I'm posting the third recipe which ended up being a very moist buttered flavored cake with peaches that had sunk to the bottom. Still tasted great with a cup coffee but will definitely be doing a round four of this cursedly delicious butter cake.

Yield: 12 to 16 servings

Prep: 1 hour

Bake: °335F, 45 minutes

Cool: 1 hour

Peach Butter Cake

11''x13'' cake pan

1 1/2 sticks butter 

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 egg yolks

3 egg whites

1/2 tablespoon of vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup chopped peaches

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Let butter and eggs stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to °335F. Grease cake pan with shortening and line with parchment paper. In a small bowl toss chopped peaches in lemon juice and 1/8 teaspoon of salt; set bowl aside.

2. In a large bowl beat butter on medium speed until smooth, about 30 to 35 seconds. Add sugar 1/4 cup at a time and scrape sides of bowl. Continue beating until creamy, about 5 minutes.

3. Add egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add in vanilla extract, mix just until combined.

4. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Alternate between flour mixture and milk as you add into butter mixture. Begin and end with the flour mixture. For each addition beat until well combined. Beat the batter until smooth, about 2 minutes.

5. Whip egg whites for about 3 minutes and then fold into batter.

6. Fold in chopped peaches and then pour batter into greased pan. Bake for about 45 to 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.

7. Place pan on cooling rack for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan and parchment paper. Let cake cool completely on cooling rack. Cut cake into small squares, pour yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Sweet Flukes

The major fluke was just the fact that there were three do overs! About to be four because I am no where near done trying to pinpoint this cake recipe.

The first cake was very thin and dense. It still had that buttery cake flavor but the cake was heavy. To the point where if for whatever crazy reason I wanted to cake slap someone I'd probably injure that person. On this round I also did too large of a pan, which probably also caused the thinness.

For round two of these cake trials I went ahead and separated the yolks and whites of the three eggs from the original recipe. The yolks were mixed in one at time and the whipped whites were folded into the batter. I also used a smaller pan and both adjustments helped with the rise of this cake. So I manage to fix the texture but the cake never seemed to fully cook through. The top was beginning to burn yet the inside had moist uncooked areas where the fruit was.

So round three was basically all about cutting the peaches into smaller pieces, lowering the heat, and longer bake time. Well, it didn't really work. The cake baked completely through which was great. Except all my peaches were at the bottom of the cake. Also, the texture had changed from round two. The cake was now very moist. I do enjoy moist cakes but for this cake I really preferred the dry crumb texture from round two. This of course was due to some unnecessary changes I made to the sugar and egg quantities. I added 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 egg yolk to add more air. Accomplished but still unnecessary.

So for round four the plan is to revert to the original sugar and egg amounts. Also, complete some crucial research to find the best away to add those peaches. If you have any ideas, recommendations, prayers or good lucks please do share!

The good news about this cake experiment is my family made sure none went to waste. All three were happily rationed out.