Summer peach spoon cake

Before I say goodbye to a summer of crispy skin, happy hearts, mountain greys, achy joints, parched lips, windows wide open, bare feet, firsts, almost firsts, heartbreak, time travel, breakfast outside, sitting on recipes, gemmy friends and maybe finally making peace with the ocean between my feet and home, I must have cake.

It’s the same ocean that made these mountains, carried me over them, settled me down and let me exhale, truly exhale, the weight of starting over.  The more I seek its power, the more resilient I become. I know this now. Cake helps too.

Summer peach spoon cake

I made this cake twice. Once was just like the original recipe (linked below) and the second time I changed it up by using a different flour, goat cheese and more spices. It’s more of a spoon/breakfast/mug cake. It’s soft – almost custard-like, does not maintain its pretty little shape on a plate and gives you all the joy of eating it in a cup in front of the TV. I love these kind of cakes.

Some notes: The cake tastes best on the day it’s made. I felt it got a little more wet the next day and the day after that. It still tastes good. I don’t like refrigerating cakes so I just covered the cake pan with plastic wrap and left it on the kitchen counter.

I used slivered almonds to make the almond meal, in a coffee grinder. You can either grind them into a flour or leave some almonds bits in the mix. I found that the almond bits gave the cake great texture.

You can soften the goat cheese by mixing it with a teaspoon or two of milk or cream.

Ingredients

Adapted from a recipe by The Domestic Front as seen on Food52

• 2 ripe peaches, cut into bite-sized cubes
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom seeds
• 1 tsp + 1/2 cup granulated cane sugar
• 83 gms unsalted butter, softened
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup goat cheese/69 gms, at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 152 gms/1 cup brown rice flour
• 58 gms/1/2 cup coarse ground almonds
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Turn the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 inch cake pan with parchment paper and grease it with butter. Dust the greased pan with brown rice flour.

Mix the cut up peaches with the spices and 1 tsp sugar in a large bowl and let it all sit covered on the kitchen counter for 2o minutes.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and 1/2 cup sugar with a hand blender or wooden spoon until the mixture is light and fluffy and the sugar is almost all combined with the butter. Add the softened goat cheese, egg and vanilla extract into the mixture and whisk until they’re all combined.

In a separate bowl, mix the brown rice flour, ground almonds, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture into the wet mixture in the large bowl and stir only until no streaks of flour remain. It might be thick and a little lumpy, but that’s okay.

Add the cake mixture into the prepared cake pan and spread it our into an even layer. Strain some of the juice released by the peaches into a cup. Pick out the peach bits (best part!) from the bowl and stick them into the cake batter using your fingers.

Place the cake pan into the oven and bake it for 10 minutes before turning down the temperature to 325 degrees F. Bake for another 50-60 minutes until the edges and top of the cake browns and a toothpick stuck in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Let it cool completely before digging in.

Long live Summer! Have the best Fall. It’s going to be great*, I hear.