So it turns out that my camera has a Food setting, for taking closeups of food. Cake. Same diff. The colours turn out much more natural, and I’ve been struggling with that one recently, because natural light in Jolly Olde England is hard to come by. The pictures I took of this cake glisten. Not in a bad way, I think, but in an “Oooh that looks tasty!” sort of way. So I’m happy!
The peaches are very shiny in this cake, but that just makes it prettier to look at and more fun to eat. Recipe from Allrecipes. Some more and again.
The Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 (29 ounce) can peach halves, drained
- 1/4 cup flaked coconut
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
Pour butter into a 9-in. round baking pan; sprinkle with brown sugar. Drain peaches, reserving 6 tablespoons of syrup. Arrange peach halves, cut side down, in a single layer over the sugar. Sprinkle coconut around peaches; set aside. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs until thick and lemon-colored; gradually beat in sugar. Add extract and reserved syrup. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add to egg mixture and mix well. Pour over peaches. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes; invert cake onto a serving plate. Serve warm.
My Alterations
I ran out of butter, so I think I used more like 1/4 cup. I basically just whacked my tub of butter in the microwave, and melted whatever was left in there. I didn’t measure it. I also used less brown suger — 1/4 cup — because that seemed like WAAAY too much sugar for one small cake.
I didn’t use peach halves, but peach slices. As you can see.
I was a bit wary of using almond flavouring instead of vanilla (mostly because I don’t much like the taste of it) and thought that peaches + coconut + almond = weirdness. But I did it anyway.
The Result
The cake itself isn’t anything special, really. It’s just a normal yellow cake with some fancy stuff on the top. But that fancy stuff — yummo! The flavour combination that worried me was actually fine. My husband is a bit fan of almond stuff (marzipan in particular) so he really enjoyed it.
Keep a close eye on it when baking, though. All the juices and caramelized sugar on the bottom of the cake make it difficult to tell when the cake is actually done. The skewer test isn’t always accurate.
The Verdict
Not bad! I was happy with the result, and that it was so easy to put together. This cake would look great on a buffet table or as a dessert for your next dinner party. I’ll definitely keep this recipe to hand for future use.
The Rating
5/5
Just because I’m not keen on almond flavouring shouldn’t detract from this cake’s rating. Pretty, easy, tasty. That says it all!
