Honestly, my last few baking attempts have been a bust. There were fallen and burnt meringues - in the same batch, too much of a new kind of flour and therefore unusable cookie dough... and I'd been feeling a little deflated about my baking efforts. But then I saw this recipe, and decided to give it a try - I'm so glad I did!
Here's what you'll need:
- muffin pan
- standing mixer
- measuring cups and/or kitchen scale
- some bowls (for measured ingredients and mixing)
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup room temperature butter, plus 1 tbs separately (90 gr)
- 6 tsp brown sugar (the original called for light, I only had dark - I say baker's choice!)
- 4 Saturn peaches (also known as donut peaches)
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (190 gr)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2/3 cup sugar (130 gr)
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup buttermilk (120 ml) (Pinjenec, for any Slovene readers, író for any Hungarian readers)
Directions:
1. Spray nonstick cooking spray in your muffin tin. (I didn't have any, so I used butter - it was fine, but I'll be picking up some nonstick spray for next time.)
2. Preheat oven to 350 F (177 C).
3. Measure out ingredients.
4. Cut 2 1/2 peaches into thinnish slices (you'll need 48 slices), and 1 1/2 peaches into small cubes.
5. Divide the 1 tbs of butter into 12 pieces, then put one in the bottom of each muffin hole.
6. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp of brown sugar on top of that.
7. Place 4 peach slices in the bottom of each muffin hole. I put them in kind of a clover shape, but you could change it to 5 slices and make it a flower, or fan them out - however you like.
8. In a bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
9. Using the paddle attachment on your standing mixer, cream together your sugar and (remaining 1/3 cup) butter.
10. While the mixer is going on a medium low speed, add the vanilla extract and egg. Beat for 2-3 minutes. Your mixture will become fluffy and lighter in color.
11. While your mixer is going, add half of the flour mixture. Beat for 1 minute.
12. Pour in buttermilk, and beat for another minute. (You may need to pause mixing and scrape down the sides of your mixing bowl.)
13. Add the second half of your flour mixture, and beat until just combined.
14. Remove mixing bowl from mixer. Fold in the peach chunks.
15. Fill each muffin hole with equal amounts of batter. The original poster used an ice cream scoop, I used the small ladle from my son's kitchen set, haha!
16. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
17. Remove from oven, allow to cool in tin for 5 minutes, then flip out onto cooling rack. (If yours get a little stuck like mine, gently use a knife to detach them from the side of the muffin tin.)
18. Serve slightly warm with vanilla ice cream, or allow to cool and serve with peaches, powdered sugar, whipped cream... these little cakes are perfect on their own, but also pair well with a "friend".
And there you have it! A peachy-keen Spring or Summer treat!
