Peach Upside-Down Cake

My husband likes to call me the laziest overachiever he knows. There is truth in that. Four layer chocolate cake with basket-weave piping and coffee macaroons as a thank you gift, sure, I will do that. But, run out and buy the cake flour called for in the recipe, heck no. I have never bought cake flour, not because I am ethically opposed, but because I am lazy. (And, I do love the MacGyver, self-sufficiency, could hack myself out of any recipe nature of a good substitution.)

When I received a sample box of Unbleached Cake Flour from King Arthur, I decided that the universe was trying to show me what I have been missing.

King Arthur was generous enough to participate in BloggerAid Changing the Face of Famine by sending out products for bloggers to review on their sites. And I decided to match their generosity by trying their product in a series of small batch baking experiments. Over the next month, I will be posting many baked goods as part of my review.

First up, peach upside-down cake…I have a love/ hate relationship with this genre of cake. I love the concept of the fruit on the bottom and my husband will devour anything that smacks of caramelization. But, I think the cake part can be tough and chewy. This seemed like a good start to prove to myself that AP flour is not truly all purpose. I went with Alton Brown’s recipe for mini-cakes, and made one small skillet’s worth. Fruit, butter and brown sugar already took me on the path to success. The cake component was a breeze (though I did add some ginger juice to it.)

The resulting cake was moist and almost flaky. It really was quite a success. And, said cake would be a wonderful thing to serve warm with ice cream for a small plated dinner with friends. Since this test, I have been thinking about making a sweet and savory version for thanksgiving with pumpkin. (But I digress.)

Test 1 completed, it looks like King Arthur Unbleached Cake Flour 1, my incredible laziness 0. Stay tuned for other tests.