Simple fare and a great peach cake

As I mentioned in my previous post, S and I have just moved into a new house. You can’t imagine just how happy we are with our new place. The house itself is a project that was two years in the making — starting with purchasing a small one-story intermediate terrace house; tearing it down; working with a brilliant but fussy architect to design a New York inspired redbrick townhouse in Singapore; months spent negotiating with contractors to work within the tiny budget that we had set aside for the build; and then finally, patiently waiting and watching over the actual build for the last 13 months.

As you might imagine, we allocated a pretty healthy space for our kitchen. I’ll devote a future post to photographing the kitchen and telling you guys and gals all about it but suffice it to say, it’s pretty darned impressive. S was in charge of both space planning and choosing our appliances. She did an amazing job… well, to be accurate, she put us in some serious debt, but it looks amazing. And since moving in last month, we’ve been having a ball entertaining again.

To our amusement, we’re also not the only ones itching to give our new kitchen a whirl. Recently, some friends of ours volunteered to come over and cook us dinner. And since one of them is one helluva cook, we happily turned over our tongs and let him have full run of the place.

B and his hottie gal-pal L prepared an amazing meal. B claimed it was “something simple”, the dishes, he said, were just whipped together last minute using ingredients he just happened to have lying around. I’m not sure about you, but even I don’t have truffles, chanterelles and grade 9 Wagyu just sitting around in my larder. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what B pulled out of the trendy leather man bag that he toted into our house.

Dinner was wonderful. We started with spaghetti with fresh chanterelles and a heavy and heady dose of summer truffles. Our main course was a seared then roasted grade 9 Wagyu beef served with a tomato and basil salad. The beef was beautifully marbled and tasted sensational. We washed the food down with a Quintarelli Rosso Del Bepi followed by an Iggy’s Pinot Noir. Both wines were perfect matches for the food.

Since B made such an amazing meal, it was only right that we made dessert. We had been given some gorgeous, large and really aromatic peaches by some other friends. While we had devoured a few au naturel, we also kept some to use in desserts. To end of the meal, we made a Buttermilk Peach Coffee Cake, using a recipe from Tish Boyle’s The Cake Book. This is a fantastic recipe. It’s relatively easy and the cake is perfect both as a chic dessert, a hearty breakfast or for snacking on at any time of the day.

We’ve included the recipe for the cake below. I hope you give it a try. And if you like it, you should buy Boyle’s book. It’s chock full of delicious recipes.

Buttermilk Peach Coffee Cake
From The Cake Book by Tish Boyle

Crumb topping and filling:
1 cup (121g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (108g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 (57g) unblanched sliced almonds
7 tablespoons (100g) unsalted butter, salted

Buttermilk peach cake:
2 cups (242g) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 (170g) unsalted butter, softened
1.25 cups (250g) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 cup (180ml) buttermilk
1 heaping cup 1/4 inch thick fresh or frozen peach slices

First make the topping and filling: In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and almonds until well blended. Add the melted butter and mix with a fork, stirring until the butter is absorbed and the dry ingredients are uniformly moistened. Set aside.

Position a rack in the centre of the oven and preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9 inch springform pan. Dust the pan with flour.

Then make the cake: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until well-blended; set aside.

In a bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and granulated sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs and egg yolk one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla and almond extract. At low speed, beat in the flour mixture in three additions, alternating it with the buttermilk in two additions.

Scrape half the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a small offset metal spatula. Sprinkle half of the crumb topping evenly over the batter, breaking up any large lumps with your fingers. Arrange a circle of peach slices, overlapping them slightly, around the outer edge of the pan. Arrange another circle of the remaining slices in the centre. Spoon the remaining batter over the filling and smooth it into an even layer, covering the folling. Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture on top of the cake.

Bake the cake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cover the cake with foil during the last 15 minutes of baking if it is getting too brown. Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes.

Remove the side of the pan and cool the cake completely.

About Aun Koh

Aun has always loved food and travel, passions passed down to him from his parents. This foundation, plus a background in media, pushed him to start Chubby Hubby in 2005. He loves that this site allows him to write about the things he adores--food, style, travel, his wife and his three kids!

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