An Abundance of Peaches

My neighbors love me this year. I am building good karma by giving them dozens and dozens of peaches. In contrast to the rest of my garden, which hasn't exactly been a cornucopia this year, our peach tree is laden with fruit and drops at least a dozen peaches a day. So, I give them away, eat them fresh with every meal, and still look for new ways to enjoy peaches.

Trolling the internet for recipes, I came across this one for a peach cake - and now I can't recall where I found it! Senior Moment - sorry! If this looks like your recipe, please let me know and I'll credit you with copious apologies.

Anyway, it's basically a single-layer, very buttery spice cake baked with fresh sugared peach slices on top. As it bakes, the peaches soften and the cake batter rises to surround them. The recipe calls for a springform cake pan but I couldn't find mine so I made it in this fluted pan with the removable bottom and the batter was thick enough that it didn't leak through.

The recipe called for walnuts in the batter, too, but I forgot to add them so I sprinkled some on top instead to crisp as the cake baked and I did like the interplay of the lightly crunchy nuts and the soft peach cake.

Because my peaches are not all that sweet, I sprinkled the top lightly with maple sugar instead of the powdered sugar the recipe recommended and that was a home run - really a nice flavor complement to the fruit.

Next time I go out into my neighborhood giving away peaches, I hope I can find the recipe and include that with the peaches, too!