“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:
- Sponge Cake
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line, grease & a 7″ loose bottomed tin.
- {If your oven in big, bake 2 X 7″ cakes together}
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt 3 times. Reserve.
- Beat the eggs, essence & sugar till mousse like {almost 10 minutes}.>
- Lightly fold the flour in 3 goes in figure 8 movements (so as no to release the air bubbles).
- Gently turn into prepared tin & bake for 20-25 minutes till light brown & spongy.
- Repeat for 2nd cake.
- Cool on racks completely, then slice horizontally into 2 layers each
- Filling
- Whip all ingredients together to medium peaks.
- Crème patisserie
- Bring cream and a pinch of salt to a gentle boil in a pot.
- 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.
- Pour the boiling cream into the mixture a little by little while whisking continuously to avoid curdling.
- 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.
- 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.
- Assemble
- Drain the peaches and slice 3-4 halves for topping. Chop up the rest.
- Reserve the peach syrup to moisten the sponge with.
- Reserve 1 cup of whipped cream for the frosting.
- 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.
- 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.
- Taste and adjust sweetness if required. Frost the top and sides of cake with it.
- Top with peach slices, chill for at least half an hour for flavours to mature.
[/print_this]
Don’t miss a post 
Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
