Ontario's best, in one cake!
Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 02:59PM Blueberries are pure nostalgia for me. Having grown up in a small town on the outskirts of a small Northern Ontario city, I spent many a summer in the blueberry patch, and nothing tastes like summer like blueberry pancakes, or one of my ultimate favourites blueberry upside-down cake.
If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll notice I have an obesssion with affinity for upside-down cakes, from apple to pineapple to rhubarb and blueberry, I think they’re a great way to showcase a fruit (although I’m not sure that rhubarb can be considered a fruit). They let the flavour of the fruit shine through and offer up a moist crumby companion to soak up the juices.
This recipe was adapted from the wonderful Earth to Table recipe book. I tried it at first with just blueberries, but then was struck with inspiration when our local peaches starting hitting the markets. Bettina Schormann the pastry chef half behind this tasty tome serves up the cake with some crème fraiche. I whisked a little maple syrup into some yogurt for a lighter accompaniment.
I also added in a little lemon zest into the recipe which is decadently buttery. Blueberries and lemon go exceptionally well together, so I figured why not. The little bit of tartness helps cut through the richness of the cake, so well.
This cake can be made in a 10 inch cast-iron skillet, or any other 10 inch cake pan that is at 2 ½ inches deep. If you make it in the skillet, you cut down on dishes, as you can melt the butter and sugar together directly in the skillet before adding the fruit.
The beauty of using the peaches and blueberries is you can use as little or as much of each fruit as you like. If you only have 3 or 4 peaches, you can add more blueberries, they just fill in the spots where there are no peaches.
After trying it this way, I would likely do more peaches and less blueberries next time for a more visually striking cake, since the berries bleed quite a bit, and stain the peaches. To skin your peaches, make a shallow X with a knife at the opposite end of the stem, blanch in boiling water for 2 minutes or until skin loosens slightly. Immediately submerge in ice cold water, and the skins will slide right off.
Also, the key to this kind of cake is to have your ingredients at room temperature. Butter and eggs should be room temp before attempting this cake, or it will not rise properly. The butter and sugar must cream together well and create a light airy mixture before adding in eggs.
A big thanks to my little brother who picked me a couple of baskets of wild blueberries to make this possible!
Blueberry Peach Upside-Down Cake
Topping:
¼ cup of unsalted butter
½ cup packed brown sugar (I use dark demerara sugar)
4 peaches, skinned and cut into eighths
2 cups fresh wild blueberries (frozen works too)
Cake
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
¾ cup yellow cornmeal.
Zest of one lemon and about 1 tbsp of juice
2 tsp of vanilla extract
1 cup butter (told ya it was buttery!)
¾ cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
½ tsp salt
¾ cup yogurt
Preheat oven to 350 F.
For topping
Melt butter and brown sugar together until sugar melts (do not overcook, or butter will burn, I tell you this from experience!).
Arrange sliced peaches in a decorative fashion, and fill in spaces with blueberries. Set aside.
Cake:
Whip butter with the paddle of an electric mixer until light and airy, add in sugar and continue to beat until fully incorporated. Add in eggs one at a time, beating between each addition. Add salt, lemon zest and juice, and vanilla and mix well.
In a separate bowl, mix together flour, cornmeal and baking powder, making sure to eliminate any clumps. (Sift if necessary)
Next, add dry ingredients into egg, butter and sugar mixture. Fold in well, Stir in yogurt.
Scoop cake evenly over fruit topping, and spread out to cover pan completely.
Bake for 50 minutes or until topping achieves a deep golden brown look and a toothpick inserted in centre of cake comes out clean.
Run a knife around the edge of pan and invert onto a plate while still warm to ensure fruit loosens from pan.
OK, and since you made it this far, I'll give you another reason to keep coming back... pictures of my beautiful little boy! He's a handful, but when he makes faces like this, well, it's all worth it!
Reader Comments (5)
Oh yum! I love upsidedown cakes too, I must try this combo!
And your babe is too cute!
The finish cake looks AMAZING! Loving the blueberries!!
Ok, now you have done it. My mouth is watering! I love all the baby pix as well. :)">
That cake looks great! I love cakes with fruit and other healthy stuff - you get to eat your cake and still have something relatively healthy!
Your baby is cute. In this pic he reminds me of my son at that age with his curly black hair (my kid is now a tall lanky 6 yr old with a big afro of curly brown hair, but he once looked like this!)
Bryce, Shirley and RJ,
Thank you for the compliments! The cake really is as good as it looks!
Lucy,I also love cakes with fruit! That's why I'm always making upside-down cakes.
Yes our little guy is quite the charmer! He's certainly stolen our hearts.