Peaches & Cream Cake … light summer cake. Trifles too!

“Cake is happiness! If you know the way of the cake, you know the way of happiness! If you have a cake in front of you, you should not look any further for joy!”
C. JoyBell C.

It was a Peaches & Cream Cake for my father’s birthday last week. Everything was going according to plan,and I toyed around with summer cake ideas in my head. Summer is for stone fruit, and the cake would most certainly have some! Peaches! I had a kilo of them in the fridge. Cream? Yes of course; there’s always some on hand. Time for peaches and cream!!

Despite knowing that whipping cream in miserable summer heat is sure to fail, I marched ahead. At 43C, life was never going to be a cake walk in the record breaking heat and humidity we have had this summer. That the rains failed added to my misery. 75% humidity and everything looks like it’s condensing! Not the best weather to work with cream cakes in ……

…and then it was time for a power breakdown. It had been assembled but a cake needs chilling you know. I stuck the cake into the fridge and we finally left for dinner. The cake survived as power was back when we returned. I thanked my lucky stars that it held together until we cut it, well almost. It was YUM!

Oh, did I tell you I never got to my kilo of peaches? Yes that happened too. With all the unnecessary drama of no power, I just reached out for a tin of canned peaches; probably my best idea that day. Another good idea was the  Crème patisserie I made for the frosting … finger licking good. 

I saved some cream and peaches; enough to make a few trifles. Layered the same way as the cake, they were fun to assemble … and eat of course! The goblets are one of my favourites from Urban Dazzle. I use them often for different stuff like Dark Chocolate Mousse, Peach Lime Coolers & Stone Fruit Salads.

[print_this]Recipe: Peaches & Cream Cake

Summary: A light summery birthday cake, the  crème patisserie lends a nice, deep flavour to the frosting on the Peaches & Cream Cake. Use fresh peaches or even apricots in season. The cake would work really well with mangoes too.
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour plus cooling , chilling time
Ingredients:

• Sponge Cake {Make 2 X 3 egg sponges}
•  3 eggs
• 100g Castor sugar
• 70g plain flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• Filling & topping
• 500g low fat cream, chilled
• 75g icing sugar {adjust as per requirement}
• 1 850g tin peach halves {I used Del Monte}
• Crème patisserie {can be made a day before}
• 200ml low fat cream
• pinch salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 vanilla bean scraped
• 50g sugar
• 15g cornflour

Method:

1. Sponge Cake
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line, grease & a 7″ loose bottomed tin.
3. {If your oven in big, bake 2 X 7″ cakes together}
4. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt 3 times. Reserve.
5. Beat the eggs, essence & sugar till mousse like {almost 10 minutes}.>
6. Lightly fold the flour in 3 goes in figure 8 movements (so as no to release the air bubbles).
7. Gently turn into prepared tin & bake for 20-25 minutes till light brown & spongy.
8. Repeat for 2nd cake.
9. Cool on racks completely, then slice horizontally into 2 layers each
10. Filling
11. Whip all ingredients together to medium peaks.
12. Crème patisserie
13. Bring cream and a pinch of salt to a gentle boil in a pot.
14. In the meantime, whisk the egg yolks and sugar with a wooden spoon in a big bowl until the mixture becomes pale and light. Stir in the cornflour slowly until it is thoroughly mixed with the egg mixture.
15. Pour the boiling cream into the mixture a little by little while whisking continuously to avoid curdling.
16. Transfer the whole mixture into a pot, with the seeds scraped from the vanilla bean {throw in the shell too}, and simmer over low heat. Stir it constantly with the wooden spoon or spatula scraping the sides and bottom until it has thickened.
17. Once the custard has thickened, take it off the heat, and strain it into a clean bowl. Add a dash of peach liqueur if desired. Cool, cover with cling wrap touching the surface, then chill for a few hours. This is going to be very thick.
18. Assemble
19. Drain the peaches and slice 3-4 halves for topping. Chop up the rest.
20. Reserve the peach syrup to moisten the sponge with.
21. Reserve 1 cup of whipped cream for the frosting.
22. Place 1 layer of sponge on serving platter, moisten with reserved peach syrup, top with 1/3 whipped cream, and 1/3rd chopped peaches. Repeat with remaining layers.
23. Loosen the chilled crème patisserie and gently fold in the reserved whipped cream. Don’t whisk briskly or it will become too floppy for frosting.
24. Taste and adjust sweetness if required. Frost the top and sides of cake with it.
    
25. Top with peach slices, chill for at least half an hour for flavours to mature.

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