One of my closest friends is due with her first baby, a little girl, at Thanksgiving. This weekend we celebrated that with a small shower hosted by another of my friends. The hostess put together an amazing pancake bar and I offered to provide some sweets. And it was almost a train wreck.
I live in a different city than where I grew up. I'm lucky, though, because its just a 6 hour drive (or a 45 minute flight) home, which means I get to be there for all the little things. Like baby showers. But the relevance to the story is that when I got to my dad's house on Friday evening I had a lot on the schedule: figure out what to make, pick up what I needed at the grocery store, and make it.
The first thing to do seemed easy enough, but I'm an indecisive girl and just could not decide what to make. I asked my siblings, the hostess, my boyfriend and never came to a conclusion. In the end, I made everything.
I took my brother to the grocery store with me. I knocked over a giant display of spices. He laughed and I bought him horchata.
Then I came home and got down to business. First I stuck some of this in the oven, which I've done plenty of times before, and it threw up all over the place. Which its never done before. I had to turn off the oven, let it cool off, and scrape half-caramelized dulce de leche off the bottom of the oven. Disgusting.
When I got back on track I got on a roll. I started making the batter for this amazing peach cake, and when it was done I opened the cupboards to grab my dad's cupcake tins. I couldn't find them. My bother told me that not too long ago, my dad had thrown away a whole bunch of kitchen stuff that he didn't use. Including the cupcake tins AND all but one cake tin! I ended up baking a three-layer cake using one cake tin. It was special.
The whole story is to tell you people that I worked hard for this cake, and it was worth it. The frosting especially is going to make it into my regular cake rotation because brown sugar plus cream cheese? Count me in!
Peach Cake with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from here
Peach Cake
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Pinch nutmeg
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, sour cream or full-fat yogurt
4 large peaches, peeled, cored, and chopped small
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare cake tins (I suggest using more than one!).
In a small saucepan, combine peaches with 1/4 cup of water. Simmer over medium heat, stirring often, until peaches being to break down. Set aside to cool.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg and reserve. Cream the butter and sugars until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla. Gently mix in the buttermilk. Slowly add the dry ingredients and fold in the peaches.
Bake for 18 to 22 minutes.
Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream
In a small bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, cornstarch and powdered sugar. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add the dry ingredients, heavy cream, and vanilla, beating until frosting is smooth and light.
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