Saturday, August 22, 2009

Peach Upside-Down Cake

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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.

9 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

You don't sound lazy to me!! Love that cake too.

Zoe said...

What a delicious little cake! Looks amazing

giz said...

What a fun post. Welcome to the dark side :). And the cake... you got my attention - especially since I just came home with 2 baskets of local peaches. Hmmmm...

Ruth Daniels said...

Great post. As for lazy overachiever...I like the notion! The cake looks absolutely fantastic too!

Thanks for sharing.

angela@spinachtiger said...

Lazy over-achiever? That was funny. Look forward to hearing about your tests.

PJH said...

I'm looking forward to reading about your further experiments. Hope they're just as successful! Thanks for trying our cake flour - and for participating in the hunger program... PJ Hamel, King Arthur Flour baker/blogger

Soma said...

lazy? you? nah!!

that looks gorgeous!!

TS of eatingclub vancouver said...

Hey, I like that: "Lazy overachiever." I know exactly what you mean... go out and buy a needed ingredient? Never mind, then! =)

In my case, it may just be "lazy achiever", though. Hehe.

Aparna Balasubramanian said...

This is being lazy? Think there's just a new definition for the word! :)
Love the King Arthur website and recipes. Just wish their stuff was available here. :(