fresh peaches Archives - Spice Up Your Life

Fresh Peach Muffins

These peach muffins feature fresh peaches (although frozen would work, too), along with a brown sugar crumble on top, making them perfect for breakfast or dessert.

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Keyword almond extract, brown sugar, fresh peaches, muffin, peaches, vanilla

Ingredients

Topping Ingredients

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter cubed

Muffins Ingredients

1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup sour cream
2 cups fresh or frozen and thawed peaches diced

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin or tins with paper liners. (I ended up having enough batter for about 18 muffins.)
For the topping, add all the dry ingredients together in a small mixing bowl and stir until they’re well combined. Cut in the butter with a fork or pastry cutter until it’s completely incorporated and the mixture is all crumbly. Set it aside.
For the muffins, beat the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl for a few minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs, vanilla and almond extract, and then beat in the baking soda, baking powder, salt, flour and sour cream until everything is well combined.
Fold in the peaches, and then scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin. Fill the liners to about one-fourth- to one-half-inch below the tops.
Press the topping into large crumbs and evenly distribute it over top of the filled liners.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffins comes out clean.
Let the muffins cool for at least 10 minutes before removing them from the muffin tin. Store cooled muffins in an airtight container.

Brown sugar peach cake levels up a boxed cake mix with lots of fresh peaches and a yummy, from-scratch brown sugar frosting. This one is a real crowd pleaser.

Last summer, we ended up with a large box of peaches, and when they started to get soft before we could finish them, I sliced them up, tossed them in a bag, and stored them away in the freezer.

Well, rather than using them up sometime last fall…or winter…or spring…they’ve just been hanging out in my freezer drawer.

I mostly forgot about them, except for Joey asking me once or twice a month, “So, what are you going to do with those peaches?”

After he asked me that again in May, I purchased some ingredients to make a fresh peach cake. And then those sat in the pantry, too.

I mentioned this week that I needed to decide what to make for my column, and he instantly said, “You know, you have those peaches.”

So, if there’s any mystery still left at all, I did go ahead and use up my freezer peaches this week, and the cake I made was a huge hit at the office.

The recipe I used comes from the blog “The View from Great Island.” You can find the original post at https://theviewfromgreatisland.com/brown-sugar-peach-cake-recipe/. I doubled the peaches and vanilla in my version.

Brown Sugar Peach Cake

Brown sugar peach cake levels up a boxed cake mix with lots of fresh peaches and a yummy, from-scratch brown sugar frosting. This one is a real crowd pleaser.

Course Dessert

Keyword brown sugar, butter, cake, cake mix, fresh peaches, heavy cream, peach juice, peach nectar, powdered sugar, vanilla

Ingredients

Cake Ingredients

15 ounce yellow cake mix
Number of eggs on the cake mix box
Amount of oil on the cake mix box
1/2 cup peach nectar or peach juice
2 pounds peeled peaches cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Frosting Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a nine-by-13-inch baking pan by spraying it with cooking spray, and set it aside
Beat the cake mix, eggs, oil and nectar until smooth. Fold in the peaches, and spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Mine took about 45 minutes.)
Let the cake cool completely.
For the frosting, cut the butter into chunks and add it, the heavy cream and brown sugar to a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the vanilla and powdered sugar until it’s well combined and there are no lumps. (If it starts to harden up on you before you’re ready, slide it back over on your still-hot burner to loosen it up a bit.)
Pour the frosting evenly over the top of the cake, spreading it out where necessary, and place the cake in the refrigerator until the frosting sets up (about 30 minutes).
Cut and serve, and store any leftovers in an airtight container.

If you’re not sure where to find peach nectar, the brand I found was Jumex, and it was located in the cold drinks area of my local grocery store rather than in the juice aisle.

This cake was amazing. I used up every last peach from the freezer, and the cake was just bursting with them, which made it delicious. Also, the frosting makes for a great compliment to the peach flavor, even if it is on the sweeter side. The cake is moist enough on its own that you could get away with skipping the frosting altogether, if that’s not your thing.

And Joey is happy that our freezer is now absent one, big bag of peaches after nearly a year. He was right, it did free up a lot of space. Unfortunately, I’m now worried he’s going to notice my collection of baking chips that were hidden underneath it.

This piece first appeared in print on June 16, 2022.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.