peach & bourbon cake with brown sugar frosting

Summer's not over for 6 more days! Just because it has started to rain again and the house is actually cold when I get up in the morning and I have started to look for my coats when I go out, it doesn't mean I am accepting fall quite yet. Even if it feels a bit like fall. There are still good peaches at the market and you should quickly turn some of them into this cake. Anytime in the next 6 days.

The end-of-summer peaches are sandwiched between two layers of fluffy, bourbon soaked vanilla cake and slathered with a toasty, not too sweet, brown sugar frosting. The frosting is a little alarming to make. The first step is boiling milk and flour together into a thick goop that looks like wallpaper paste. so appetizing! But frosting magic happens when you whip the cooled paste into creamed butter and sugar. Somehow that wallpaper paste turns impossibly fluffy, toasty and caramelly from the brown sugar, but not too sweet. 

yellow cake: 

adapted from smitten kitchen

• 4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 cups buttermilk (or two cups milk soured with a splash of lemon juice)

Heat oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of a 9" cake pan with parchment paper. 

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Cream butter and sugar together until light in colour. Add vanilla and eggs and beat to combine. Scrape the sides of the bowl and eat again until well incorporated. 

On the lowest speed, beat in buttermilk. Add flour mixture in three additions. Hand mix with a spatula to incorporate before turning on the mixer will help prevent flour exploding everywhere. Scrape down bowl to make sure there are no unmixed spots. 

Pour about 1/2 of the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool cakes and run a knife around the edge so they come out of the pan cleanly. 

Reserve half the batter for another use, it freezes very well in an airtight container. 

peach & bourbon syrup: 

• 2 peaches peeled and chopped
• 3 tbs brown sugar
• 2 tbs bourbon
• 1 tbs lemon 
• 1/2 cup water

Combine everything in a small saucepan on medium heat and stir until sugar dissolves and peaches just start to soften. Strain peaches away, reserving them for the filling, and set syrup aside to cool.

peach filling: 

• 1/2 cup peach jam
• chopped peaches from the syrup recipe
• 1 tbs bourbon

Combine ingredients and chill until ready to assemble.

brown sugar frosting:

adapted from i heart eating

• 7 tbs all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups butter, room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla 

Combine milk and flour in a small pot and whisk constantly over medium heat until very thick. It will take around 8-10 minutes and will change quickly from thin and milk-like to a very goopy paste. Set aside to cool. 

When the flour paste is cool, cream butter and sugar for about 3 minutes, until fluffy. Add flour mixture and vanilla and whip until very fluffy, and sugar has dissolved, about 5 minutes. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl well and continue to mix; unincorporated sugar likes to hide out there and make everything go all streaky and separated. 

assembly:

Trim any rounded top off the cake to make it flat and level. Trim off the sides if you wish, so that there is no crust on the outside of the cake. Carefully cut the cake in two layers using a bread knife, place one layer on a cake turntable or stand.

Drizzle the peach syrup evenly over both cake layers. Let it soak in for about 5 minutes. Pipe a thick wall of frosting around the outside on the bottom layer of cake, and spoon the peach filling inside in a thick layer. Carefully place the top layer onto the cake and chill for about 30 minutes to firm up. Quickly frost the chilled cake all over with remaining frosting (you may want to re-whip it for a couple minutes before frosting) and smooth using a bench scraper or offset spatula. 

The cake should be refrigerated if you aren't going to eat it right away, but allow to come to room temperature for at least 2 hours before serving. 

grilled patty pan salad

I found the most beautiful, alien-looking patty pan squash at the market this week: little knobbly, pale green flying saucers, bright yellow miniature crooknecks, two-toned oblongs. They are such strange, lovely shapes it almost seemed a shame to cut them up and cook them.  I spent a day just looking at them, trying to decide what recipe would do them justice. 

I decided to make them into a warm salad with some feta, olives and lemon. This salad is great on it's own or heaped up on a crispy piece of toasted sourdough. Leftovers are really good tossed with some pasta or cooked wheat berries and arugula and keep really well as a pasts/grain salad. It lasts really well so you won't have to turn on the stove for a couple days if you make a big batch. 

grilled patty pan squash salad: 

• 1-2 pounds patty pan squash, halved

• olive oil

• 1/2 cup feta, crumbled

• 1/4 cup kalamata olives

• chili flakes

• parsley, chopped

• juice from one lemon

Brush patty pan with olive oil and grill on medium high heat on a BBQ or grill pan until dark grill marks appear. Flip and grill until all sides are browned. Toss with feta, olives, chili flakes, parsley and squeeze lemon juice over the top. 

Serve heaped over toasted sourdough, rub the bread with half a clove of garlic after you toast it, or toss it into some pasta, or just eat the salad on it's own. 

pineapple chili margaritas

I get nervous around those big stemmed margarita glasses. They are awkward and top heavy. I can barely drink a cup of tea, stone cold sober, without spilling a generous amount all over myself. I don't own much white clothing. Add tequila and (ideally) some drowsy, sunny catnapping and a heavy, tippy glass into this equation and I am invariably going to make a mess. It's not a super dignified look. Obviously, you should serve these margaritas however you like, but I think they are best in a sturdy and unprecious tumbler. No unnecessary stemware stress. 

This pineapple margarita is summer in a glass. Tart and sweet sunny yellow pineapple, acid lime juice with just enough sugar to take the edge off the pucker, with tequila and chili for bite. 

Tajin is a delicious Mexican spice blend with chili, salt and lime. It's really good sprinkled on sliced cucumbers, pineapples, mangoes...pretty much any kind of fruit. It's quite sour so if you do use it for the rims, so be judicious at first.

pineapple chili margaritas:

serves 4

• 2 cups frozen pineapple 
• 1 cup ice 
• 4 ounces tequila 
• 2 ounces triple sec
• juice from 2 limes 
• 1/4 cup sugar 
• pinch of chili flakes
• tajin spice, or salt for the rim 

Run a wedge of lime around the rims of four glasses and then dip them into a shallow dish of tajin spice or salt. 

In a blender, combine pineapple, ice tequila, triple sec, lime juice, chili and sugar and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust sugar, lime juice and tequila to your desired levels of sweetness/tartness/booziness. 

Drink in a hammock, if you are particularly confident about your ability to not spill. 

haloumi & zucchini fritters

It's coming up on the abundant zucchini time of year, the summertime overflow of showy blossoms and bulbous squashes. If you are growing it in your garden, it's easy to turn from delight at the zucchini bounty to panic at the onslaught of seemingly endless squashes. 

There are many ways to avoid courgette burnout, but I think one of the very best is shredding up a whole mess of zucchini with some haloumi and a beaten egg and frying up some tasty fritters. An enormous volume of zucchini can be dispatched into crispy, squeeky-cheese filled snacks. Add a spicy dip and it's a perfect appetizer or entire dinner, if you want to wolf down the whole plate like I did. 

If you want to turn these into a proper dinner, serve the fritters over a big herby green salad with a couple handfuls of basil, mint, parsley and dill. The amounts here are flexible, but you are aiming for a mixture that is moist and clumping but not soggy and runny. Add extra egg for more liquid and more breadcrumbs/chickpea flour to sop up extra liquid. 

haloumi & zucchini fritters: 

• 2-3 large zucchini, or more, this recipe is flexible!

• 1-2 eggs, lightly beaten

• 1 package of haloumi shredded, about 2/3 cup

• 2-3 tbs panko breadcrumbs or chickpea flour for a GF version

• 1/2 cup chopped parsley

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• pinch chili flakes

• salt and pepper

• oil for frying

Shred zucchini and place in a colander. Salt the zucchini and let sit for 10 minutes to drain. Press with paper towels until zucchini gives off no more liquid. Combine other ingredients except oil together in a large bowl and mix until evenly combined. 

Heat oil over medium high heat in a large pan. Fry 1/3 cupfuls of mixture well spaced apart in the pan for a couple minutes per side. They should unstick easily from the pan and slide around when they are ready to flip. When both sides are deep gold and crispy, set on paper towels while you finish frying the others.

spicy dip: 

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• 1/4 tsp cayenne

• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika

• squeeze of lemon juice

• salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Dip those fritters!

hazelnut & blond chocolate crispies

Oh my god, do you guys know about dishwashers? They are pretty great. I just moved into a new apartment with many lovely features, including a backyard & garden in which I have some little sprouts growing and some really nice stained glass windows and a big lovely kitchen with a dishwasher! This thing just washes your dishes for you. I can sit and have a cup of tea, and the dishes are being washed by a robot. It's the best thing ever. I can't recommend it enough. I feel like I have won the lottery, but more so. I shall endeavour to never live dishwasherless again. I just put the bowls and spatulas from this recipe right in there, and the elves that live in my dishwasher cleaned 'em right up. 

These crispy squares are a teeny, tiny bit more work than the standard version, but not too much. And it's totally worth the wee bit of extra effort for the nutty, toasty, toffee flavours. Toasting the cereal and roasting the white chocolate is quick and easy, but they add depth and toffee-nuttiness. Puffed rice cereal is classic, but you can use any puffed grains. I used a combo of rice and millet. Blond chocolate is overly-sweet white chocolate's grown up sister - toasty, nutty and toffee flavoured. White chocolate skeptics will be convinced. If you roast two bars of chocolate you can save half for snacking, melting over ice cream or folding into cookies. Some super fancy chocolate brands even sell blond chocolate - if you can find some you won't even have to turn on your oven. 

More with blond chocolate: caramelized white chocolate and raspberry financiers

blond chocolate:

1- 2 bars of white chocolate

On a cookie sheet, roast white chocolate at 265°F. Every 5 minutes, take the sheet out and smoosh the chocolate around with a spatula or bench scraper. It will seize and go all grainy and weird, don't worry! That's fine. 

Roast until chocolate is a deep toffee colour, a bit like peanut butter. Cool until hardened. 

 hazelnut & blond chocolate crispies

adapted from the kitchn 

• 6 cups puffed cereal, any kind

• 6 tablespoons butter

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 4 cups mini marshmallows

• 3 tbs praline paste

• 1/3 cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped

• 1/3 cup blond chocolate, chopped into chunks

• big pinch flaky salt

Butter a 9"x 13" pan, or line with parchment, if you are too lazy to wash a pan (I am!). 

In a large skillet, toast the cereal on medium heat until it smells fragrant and turns slightly darker in colour. Let cool in a large bowl.

Melt butter in a large pot and on low heat, add marshmallows, stirring constantly until melted. Add praline paste and vanilla and stir until evenly incorporated. Pour marshmallow mixture over toasted cereal and add hazelnuts and chocolate chunks. Stir until cereal is evenly coated in marshmallow goo and press into prepared tin. Sprinkle with flaky salt if you like. 

Let set for about an hour and cut into squares. 

super lemony cake with cream cheese frosting

I think cake is almost always way too sweet. Super sweet frosting without any obvious flavour other than slick, fatty, sweetness with the faintest whiff of a mirage of vanilla. I never liked super sweet cakes and I think  that's why I like to make cake. I want cake to be its best self. Floofy and light and flavourful and intense and not quite so damn sweet all at once. It is possible! This cake combats over sweetness in two ways: super tart and thick lemon curd, combined with extra strength lemon syrup soaked cake layers; and a fluffy, tangy whipped cream cheese frosting. 

Layering the lemon in syrup and curd gets this cake intensely lemony: zingy and tart and puckering and bright. It's a summer time, sunshiney cake. This frosting is a little different that other cream cheese frostings, it's whipped up with whipping cream. It makes a really fluffy and light frosting that is pipeable and holds it's shape beautifully. 

Note about amounts: This cake recipe makes at least twice as much as you will need for the petite cake I made here. Either extra freeze raw batter in mason jars (make sure to leave 1" of space at the top of the jar and freeze without lid, put the lid on after batter is frozen) for using later, or just double the frosting, syrup and curd amounts and make a mega cake! The frozen cake batter will work great thawed, more on this coming soon. Frozen cake batter will change your life. 

yellow cake: 

adapted from smitten kitchen

• 4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 cup butter, softened

• 2 cups sugar

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 4 large eggs, at room temperature

• 2 cups buttermilk (or two cups milk soured with a splash of lemon juice)

Heat oven to 350°F. Line the bottoms of two 6" cake pans with parchment paper. 

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Cream butter and sugar together until light in colour. Add vanilla and eggs and beat to combine. Scrape the sides of the bowl and eat again until well incorporated. 

On the lowest speed, beat in buttermilk. Add flour mixture in three additions. Hand mix with a spatula a little to avoid flour explosions. Scrape down bowl to make sure there are no unmixed spots. 

Reserve half the batter for another use. Divide remaining batter between two prepared 6" pans. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until cakes are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool cakes and run a knife around the edge so they come out of the pan cleanly. 

lemon curd:

adapted from Martha Stewart

• 6 egg yolks

• 1/2 cup lemon juice

• zest from one lemon

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 1/2 cub cold butter, cubed

Combine yolks, lemon juice and rind, and sugar in a small saucepan. Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Remove from heat and stir in cubed butter, mixing until well combined. Strain through a fine mesh sieve, transfer to a glass jar and chill in the fridge until cool and very thick. The curd can be made several days in advance.

lemon syrup:

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 1/2 cup lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Chill.

whipped cream cheese frosting:

adapted from Just a Taste

• 8 ounces cream cheese

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs whipping cream, chilled

• 1/2 vanilla bean innards, or 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the cream cheese until soft. Add sugar and vanilla; beat until well incorporated. Whisking at a medium-high speed, pour whipping cream into mixer bowl in a slow stream. Frosting should become very fluffy. 

assembly:

Trim cakes as required to flatten the tops, I like to cut the side crusts off too to get nothing but the super fluffy middle cake. Drizzle lemon syrup generously over the cake layers and let soak in for a couple minutes. 

Place one cake layer on a 6" cake board if you have it, or a flat plate or cake stand. Cover cake with a very generous layer of curd, it should be quite thickly set so you can really pile it on without oozing over the edge. Leave a thin boarder of uncovered cake around the edge to make space for squishing when you add the next cake layer. Sandwich next cake layer on top and cool in the fridge around 15 minutes to set up, to help the curd not ooze out into your frosting. This is a good time to make the frosting. 

Frost the chilled cake quickly all over with an offset spatula, making sure to cover all exposed cake. Adding more frosting as you go, use an offset spatula, or bench scraper to tidy up and give the cake some nice clean angles. I used a cake comb to make the ridges along the side on the cake.  

Optional: decorate your cake with some sprinkles. You really should do it though, look how cute they are.