Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Peach Upside Down Cake—Tuesdays With Dorie—Baking With Julia

TWD--Peach Upside Down Cake 9-2-12

Peach Upside Down Cake

For Tuesdays With Dorie--Baking With Julia this go-round, we were to make the Nectarine Upside Down Chiffon Cake.  Check out our hosts’ posts for the recipe. 

Susan at The Little French Bakery and Marlise at The Double Trouble Kitchen are the blogs to visit for the recipe. 

I sort of veered off the written recipe.  I couldn’t help it.  When I looked at the cake, I decided I just couldn’t make a cake that had six eggs.  I need to cut back on so many decadent, fattening treats a bit.  But I did stick with a couple things as they were in the recipe from the book. 

*The original cake is supposed to have nectarines, but I used peaches.  I did a quick water-boiling bath to remove the skins and sliced them into eight slices each.  I used three peaches. 

*When I saw that the butter/brown sugar layer for the peaches to rest on had one cup of brown sugar, I decided it didn’t need that much sugar, so I cut it from one cup to only half a cup.  I think it was just fine.  I should have cut the butter, too.  It would have been just fine with less butter as well.

*I did make the streusel just how the recipe was written, except I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour.  The streusel was one of my favorite things about the cake. 

*And finally, I didn’t make the chiffon cake.  Instead I made this French Yogurt Cake, with just the vanilla extract.  And I again used whole wheat pastry flour.   Making this “lighter” cake, which has oil instead of butter and of course, yogurt (I used fat free, plain Greek yogurt), I felt better about having some of the dessert when it was done.  I also baked the cake in a 9-inch springform pan, though the recipe says to use a 10-inch pan.  I don’t have one.  I think it was just fine in the 9-inch, but I’m sure the French Yogurt Cake didn’t have as much batter as the chiffon cake would have made.  

Peach Upside Down Cake--TWD

  I have a little laugh for you.  I prepared the cake, put it in the oven, set the timer for 30 minutes and went about my business.  The timer beeped.  I opened the oven, saw that it looked like it still needed more time, so I set the timer again for 10 more minutes.  When the timer beeped again, I opened the oven and noticed the cake didn’t look any different.  Hmmm?   What could be the problem?  Why, yes, yes I did “bake” the cake with the oven off!  SIGH  It never occurred to me until after that 40 minutes that the oven wasn’t even on!  What a goofball!  I know, I’m not the only one to do such a thing, but silly me! 

I removed the cake from the oven while it preheated.  I think one of the reasons I didn’t realize the oven was off was because it was still warm from baking the streusel.  I like to think I would have noticed a cold oven.

Peach Upside Down Cake--TWD 9-2-12

My family prefers Cool Whip to fresh whipped cream.  I only obliged this time because we happened to have a tub of it in the refrigerator.  Sometimes, it is just so much easier to dollop a little Cool Whip on things—you know, there’s nothing quite like a little hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup to top off a great, healthier cake.  sigh

14 comments:

Emily said...

Gorgeous!

Don't feel bad about the Cool Whip! We all have a tub of that around somewhere! :)

Sue @ Cakeballs, cookies and more said...

oh that looks good, and I love cool whip, nothing wrong with that;p

Cindy said...

Thanks for the laugh Katrina--why do people like cool whip??
I made the recipe as written, because I've never made a cake like it. We loved it--the streusel was not necessary. The cake was divine!

Unknown said...

Hahha. I wish we had Cool Whip here. It was a standard in my fridge when I was living alone in UK, it's just so convenient and fun. Here, I can't just serve a dollop of whipped cream on the side without having to whip it first¬

Jersey Girl Cooks said...

My family likes cool whip too. Of course i like real whipped cream. Great cake!

Catherine from www.praycookblog.com said...

Your cake looks nice. It is fun baking with the group!
Blessings, Catherine http://praycookblog.com/2012/09/twd-bwj-nectarine-upside-down-chiffon-cake/

Savoring Italy said...

Oh my goodness! Those peaches look fantastic. Your cake turned out perfectly:)

Flourchild said...

It looks great Katrina! Im glad you enjoyed it!

Anonymous said...

this looks SO delicious - so full of flavor and the peaches look gorgeous !
Mary x

Cathleen | My Culinary Mission said...

Looks delicious. Your peaches are beautiful!

Marilyn said...

Funny post. At least you remembered the streusel! I forgot a lot of things this time. Almost forgot the oil; I would've had a really healthy cake!

spike. said...

good call on the french yogurt cake!

Cher Rockwell said...

I like the path you went down!
And I have TOTALLY done that with the oven...

TeaLady said...

Glad to know you can cut back on a lot of the fattening ingredients and it still comes out perfectly. I made minis now. four pieces and GONGEEE