Brown Sugar Peach Pie

The weather has changed slightly with a good north westerly breeze helping me get all my clothes dry but it also had me putting on a cardigan! I was adamant, after the beautiful weather we had, that I wouldn't put back on my winter clothes. But still, it is a little chilly so I needed something warm and fuzzy to fill me.

This tray bake pie was to be it and good thing too, as it felt warm and summery as soon as we started eating it. It's also a very homely pie, perfect for sharing with pots of strong tea and really suited an evening after dinner reminiscing the Irish Summer as we looked out at the return of the rain!!

A full fat, Irish Dairy butter short crust pastry keeps the peaches in place, holding in all that lovely, sticky, sweet mess. The peaches offer that perfect blend of texture to help balance out the sweet flavours of the brown sugar and bourbon. The cinnamon helps make the pie rustic, satisfying and homespun. Perfect for this time of year.

Brown Sugar Peach Pie

The Pastry:

480g plain flour

100g icing sugar

300g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing the pan)

2 large free range eggs

The Peaches:

4 cans of peach slices

125g demerara sugar

2 tbsp of bourbon

1 tsps cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 180C, 350F or Gas Mark 4.

Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs. Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.

Split into two balls, one slightly larger than the other.

Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge for 30 mins.

Add all the ingredients for “The Peaches” into a bowl and toss about until coated. Set to one side, to rest.

Grease with the extra butter, a rectangular baking tray, ideally 9x13 and about 2 inch deep.

When the balls come back out of the fridge, roll them out, the size of your tray pan. Place on rectangle of pastry into the tray and let any excess hang over the edges.

Using a slotted spoon fill the pan with the peaches, being careful not to add in any juice that may have seeped out during resting. Spread out evenly.

Cutting strips of pastry with the other rectangle layer them over the pan, pulling alternate strips back and layering the opposite direction to give a lattice effect.

Once the top has been covered over, turn in the edges of pastry that were hanging over and pinch to close. Brush the top of the pastry with the peach juices left over in the bowl, toss some demerara over the top.

Bake the whole thing in your pre heated for 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden and the juices are bubbling inside.

Leave to cool for about 15 minutes and serve warm with a big dollop of ice cream. 

Simple and delicious!!

Sure what more could you want on these not so summer days?

Picnic Peach Cobbler

It's one of those summer desserts that you just keep picking at. And because it's got fruit and oats in it, you can totally say it's on the good for you side of desserts... although with the amount of sugar.. Maybe don't think about that part!

It's one of those desserts that is really great warm with real vanilla ice-cream, melting in to the crevasses, dripping down the sides of the peaches. Served at room temperature with a dollop of fresh cream and some grated nutmeg. Or how about cold from the fridge, straight off the spoon, as you stare pointlessly into the shelves trying to come up with something for dinner that isn't Peach Cobbler!! 

It a robust, sturdy bake to bring with you to that summer picnic you've been invited to. Imagine the applause as you roll up with this dish, filled with sweet juicy peaches, topped with soft oaty-baked cobbler and a tub of vanilla bean ice cream. 

It's not that hard to make either. You kind of just dump the peaches in the dish, throw over some sugar and spices. Leave to sit, make the cobbler, bake for 50 minutes and wait for it to cool... To be honest the hardest part is waiting for it to cook and then cool. Because believe me when I say it comes out hot. Like very hot and you will burn your tongue... so just wait a bit longer.

It will be worth it!

Peach Filling

2 cans of peach halves or 10 peaches halved (Cheaty McCheaty.. I used canned)

1 tablespoon lemon juice
225g Demerara of regular granulated sugar
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
2 tbsp cornflour

Combine your  peaches (with the canned version, drain them completely first), lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cornflour in a large bowl; mix them all up real good and set aside for 10-15 minutes.

Cobbler Topping 

I got so excited to bake it, I forgot to take a picture of it!

425g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp granulated sugar
125g butter, cold and cut into small pieces
180 ml buttermilk
Few handfuls of rolled oats or to your liking...

Putting it all together...

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.

Whisk together the flours, oats, baking powder, sugar in a mixing bowl. Throw the butter pieces into the bowl and with your fingers, work them into the flour mixture until it is the texture of breadcrumbs. It can be a chunky as you like here. 

Pour the buttermilk on top and using a fork, mix until just combined. It'll be nice and sticky.
Pour the peach sugar/spice concoction into a deep baking dish, (mines a ten inch apple pie dish with 3 inch deep sides). Drop the cobbler topping dough by the spoonful all over the peach filling. There's no exact way of doing this, just cover the whole thing leaving tiny gaps to let all those yummy juices bubble up and spill out over the cobbler crumb!

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden brown.

Leave to cool on a wire rack when it comes out. The juices are very hot so please be careful. I know it'll be hard to wait but I promise it'll be worth it.

I like mine served warm with vanilla ice cream.. the real bean kind. Not the soft serve I have in the pictures!! Seems my kids have taken a liking to the real kind too... The apple doesn't fall far, eh?

Enjoy the week folks and as always, thank you so much for stopping by!

Brown Sugar Shortbread with a Peach (no-churn) Ice Cream

For those of you into numbers, this recipe will be brought to you by the number three.

It's not that I planned it that way, it's just how it is really. What follows are three, incredibly simple easy makes. Having them individually, on their own is fabulous but smooshed together on a hot summers day... Now you are talking my language!

Peaches are in season so perfect to buy ripe and juicy right now, but if you are lazy you can totally opt for canned.. No one is going to judge you! All recipes contain three ingredients. Three, no more and no less. Three exactly.

That's it.

Like honestly, you cannot go wrong with this. Make one or all and bask in your baking prowess.

Baked Peach Puree

3 whole peaches skinned, de-stoned and chopped in half
a little knob of butter for each peach half
sprinkle of brown sugar

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F or Gas Mark 4.
In an oven proof dish, add all the ingredients and pop in the oven, uncovered for 25 minutes until the juices are bubbling the sugar has melted and the peaches are gone all squidgy.
Remove from the oven, allow to cool for about 10 minutes and then blitz into a puree with a hand blender or similar.

Peaches and Cream Ice Cream

500ml of single cream
1 can of condensed milk
the batch of peach puree

Whip the cream up until peaks form.
Add in the condensed milk and continue to whip until thick.
Fold through the batch of peach puree and transfer into a freezer proof container (I like to use a loaf pan). Cover the container with clingfilm or a lid.
Pop into the freezer for at least 4 hours to set.

Brown Sugar Shortbread

225g salted butter at room temperature
285g self-raising flour
110g soft brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F or Gas Mark 2. Line two cookies sheets with baking parchment.
In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until it is one sticky mess.
Add the flour and mix until just combined.
Toss the dough out onto a pre-floured counter top and knead together.
Wrap the dough up into some clingfilm and pop into the fridge for 20-30 minutes, to allow the butter to cool.

Roll out the dough onto a pre-floured counter top and cut out your shapes.

I like to do little circles... JUST REMEMBER to space the cookies apart as they spread when they are baking.. I usually get about 16 cookies from my dough.

Bake for 15-20 mins on the lowest racks in the oven, until they have turned that beautiful caramel colour. They will be soft (and hot) to touch when you take them out. You need to leave them on the tray to cool completely. By doing so you will have that soft, melt in your mouth crumbly texture to them.

Just like shortbread should!

Once you've gotten through all the steps assemble how you please.

I like to do the scoop on top of a cookies, but you could sandwich the ice cream between two... or even crumble the cookies into crumbs and sprinkle it all haphazard like.

Whatever you do, enjoy it. That's the main thing!

Peach Winter Crumble

With January well on it's way, I have been finding it hard to get back into things. College isn't back until the end of this month and I think because I had worked so hard last semester, I deserve an elongated break... whether or not that's right, it is what I am telling myself anyway!

I'm not a fan of January, a strange month. An in between month, sort of a no mans land with a tendency to throw up atrocious weather and consequently, varying degrees of boredom. Now you could say here if I started back into college work I could curb some boredom but then.. I wouldn't have time to bake you see, so really it's best I leave that for another while.

I did find in the absence of activity, the need to look into my kitchen drawers and ponder whether or not they will ever look as good as those you see in the magazines. I noticed the half empty packets of bits and pieces and figured I would put them to good use in a fruit crumble. 

Thing is, tinned peaches were all I had in abundance. And with my kids and husband having a strong aversion to any fruit that isn't chocolate, I was making this crumble for myself. Not that that's a real problem per say, but it is a problem when you are trying to reduce your sugar intake or you know, watching your waistline expand. 

Peach Winter Crumble

The Peaches:
2 cans of peach halves

2  tbsp soft brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

Pinch of ground cloves

The Crumble:

140g plain flour

60g ground almonds

100g porridge oats (not instant)

75g cold butter

50g soft brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F or Gas mark 4.

Drain the peaches and pop them into a deep baking dish. Scatter over the sugar and the spices and then toss everything together.

In a bowl, combine the flour, oats, ground almonds and soft brown sugar.

In another bowl, melt the butter in the microwave and pour into the crumble mix. Mix together with a fork until you have a rough crumbly, squidgy mixture.

Scatter over the peaches, then bake for 25-35 mins until golden and crunchy on top.

Allow to cool and enjoy!

How are you getting through January? Or do you like being marooned on no mans land.. I'd love to know what you think!

Caramelised Peach Upside Down Cake

When I saw peaches on this months choice board for The Cake Slice Bakers, I knew that there would be no need for me to read through the other options. Mom's birthday is the 18th of August and I knew she would like this cake. It was killing two birds with the one stone for me.. Plus with peaches being in season, there really was no other option.

But I probably should have read the whole recipe through before deciding I was making this cake. It was supposed to be a skillet cake.. And um... I don't actually own a skillet pan. Can you imagine that? Well it's the truth! This cake was a make it all in the one pan, bake it in that pan, invert it out of that pan and hey presto! Skillet Peaches Upside Down Cake. 

Again I don't actually own a skillet pan so imagine my dismay, when I had everything ready to go but no actual pan to start in. Not one to be put off by such trivial things, trivial and oh so incredibly pertinent to the whole integrity of this actual cake, I carried on.

I made as described the caramel for the peaches. Just in my trusty frying pan. I poured that delicious goo into a 10' spring form pan, that I had wrapped in foil along the bottom. I concentrically arranged all the peaches I had cut (and shaped into almost equal sizes) around the bottom of the pan, right on top of the caramel.

In a separate bowl I prepared my batter and poured it over. I baked the cake at the exact temperature required but lessened my baking time. And I think it worked out just as well.

The plain flour has less gluten in it, so the crumb is fine and crumbly. The caramelisation process that the peaches go through makes them sweet and sticky and adds a more robust flavour. You can taste the depth of the brown sugar, melding with the juice from the peaches, soaked up by that gorgeous crumb.

Caramelised Peach Upside Down Cake

- recipe adapted from Southern Cakes

about 6 medium peaches, peeled and cut into even wedges. (or used tinned if you're in a hurry/lazy/couldn't really be bothered skinning peaches)
250g plain flour
3/4tsp baking powder
310g caster sugar
180g soft butter
125g light brown sugar
1 vanilla bean
2 large eggs
125ml buttermilk

Preheat your oven to 350F/180C or Gas mark 4. Line the bottom of a baking sheet with parchment and the bottom of your spring form pan with tin foil.
Sift your flour and baking powder together.
In your frying pan, cook half the sugar over a medium heat, until the sugar melts and turns a deep amber colour. This should take about 10 minutes.
Remove from the heat and immediately add 60g of the butter stirring vigorously.
Pour the caramelised sugar into the bottom of your cake pan and spread it out so it evenly coats the bottom.
Arrange the peaches in a circular fashion, overlapping as needed. Sprinkle the top of the peaches with the brown sugar.
Split the vanilla bean length ways and add to a mixing bowl. Beat the rest of the sugar, butter and eggs until smooth. Add the buttermilk and gradually add the flour, beating on low until just blended together.
Spoon the batter over the peach wedges and place the pan on the baking sheet if your haven't already done so,
Bake on the middle shelf for 40-45 minutes until golden brown on top and a skewer inserted in the centre, comes out clear.
Coll the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, before running a knife around the edges. Pop the side of your spring form pan open.
Invert the cake onto your serving plate and allow to cool.
Serve garnished with a lightly sweetened whipped cream and enjoy!

If you'd like to see what the other bakers got up to this month.. follow the linky below. Or check them out on the The Cake Slice Facebook Page.

An InLinkz Link-up