Karina's Gluten-free Peach Cake

Peachy Summer Baking.

Lazy summer days are sweet and sticky jewels studded with fresh cut fruit and juicy cakes. Farmers' markets buzz with color and scents. And peaches are the star. Get them while you can, Gentle Reader. Inhale their ripe velvet voluptuousness. Because all too soon they will be gone, and the stony, flavorless winter impostors picked well before ripening, thrown into crates and imported from far off orchards flirting with the southern hemisphere sun will be posing at your market as peaches. But they are not. And they know it.

They don't even try to pretend.

So grab your baskets and get thee to a local farmers' market. There is peach cake and peach crisp, and peach ice cream to be savored.

Some of you may recognize the basic recipe here. It's one I've posted and tweaked. It's not in my nature to follow directions or repeat a success without tweaking it, you see. I just can't do it. My brain chemistry switches to Bored Beyond Belief faster than you can mutter the words peach pancakes on a stick.

Let's just say I was a challenge in school. And in jobs (and okay, relationships) requiring a set routine or specific schedule. Rules and expectations writ in stone give me the itch to break free and play, What if? I just can't do the same thing over and over. I get too restless. I get punchy. And I'm also a big believer in change.

Change is good.

Change means I'm alive, growing and learning. Change means I'm curious, taking a risk, discovering something I didn't know before. Experimenting and sometimes failing or looking like an idiot often comes with the territory. Sure, I might end up feeling inept or totally stupid. Born too late. Or too soon. But will that keep me in my proper place and tame my wanton right-brained ways?

Not on your life, Babycakes.

Karina's Summer Peach Cake Recipe

Recipe posted October 2007 by Karina Allrich.

Those of you eating vegan will be pleased to know this cake is not only gluten-free, it is dairy-free and egg-free (not to mention, soy-free, nut-free and yeast-free). And if any of you gluten-free bakers out there want to switch out the peach slices for some other fruit- go ahead. This cake would work with apples, pears, plums and apricots.

If you're not egg-free and can handle eggs no problem, use organic happy free-range eggs, wouldja?

Ingredients:

First, you'll need:

2 cups peeled, sliced organic peaches. Set aside.

Whisk together:

1 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup GF buckwheat or millet flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch or potato starch (not potato flour!)

2 teaspoons xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Beat to combine:

2/3 cup coconut oil or Spectrum Organic Shortening

3/4 cup organic light brown sugar

1/4 cup pure maple syrup or raw agave

1/2 teaspoon light tasting vinegar

1 tablespoon bourbon vanilla extract

1 cup organic peach juice

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredient mix. Add an egg replacer for two eggs (if you can do eggs- use two large organic eggs). My egg replacer is Ener-G Egg Replacer.

For two eggs:

1 tablespoon Energ-G Egg Replacer (or two eggs)

4 tablespoons warm water

Whisk till frothy.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease and dust a 8 or 9-inch round cake pan with gluten-free flour. I use a 9-inch Chicago Metallic pan.

Add the egg replacer to the batter. Beat until smooth. I recommend using an electric mixer with gluten-free batters. Beat for about two minutes.

A reminder on gluten-free vegan batters:

Gluten-free vegan batters do not behave like wheat batters. They are often stiffer at first, then they get rather sticky and stretchy as the xanthan gum and egg replacer do their vegan g-free thing. If the batter climbs the beaters, slow down the speed and slightly lift the beaters to encourage the batter to migrate back down into the bowl. Move your beater around the bowl in figure eights, at a slight angle.

Scoop the cake batter into the pan and spread evenly.

Place the peach slices into the batter in a concentric pattern (or any pattern you prefer).

Make a cinnamon brown sugar topping:

4 tablespoons organic brown sugar

2 tablespoons gluten-free sorghum or rice flour

2 tablespoons coconut oil or Spectrum Organic Shortening

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Rub these ingredients together till a crumbly mixture forms. Sprinkle on top of the peaches.

Place the cake into the center of a preheated oven and bake until firm and golden, and a wooden pick inserted into the center emerges clean- about 30 to 40 minutes. If your peaches were cold (or frozen) the cake will take longer to bake.

Cool the cake on a wire rack.

This cake was especially good warm. I wrapped leftover slices in foil and bagged them to freeze for future treats.

Serves 10.

Karina's Notes:

Traditionally, I would have used sour cream or yogurt in a cake recipe like this, but since I must be dairy-free I used organic unsweetened peach juice.

Yogurt could also be used as the liquid.

You could also use a non-dairy milk such coconut milk.

If the center is not done when you test it, lower the heat by 25 degrees F and continue baking the cake for 5 minutes. Check again. If there are a lot of fruit slices in the center, the center area of the batter may take longer to bake.


More peachy recipes from gluten-free food bloggers:

Elana's Pantry Peach Crisp

Freckled Face Mama's Gluten-Free Peach Cobbler

Peach Elderberry Jam at Wasabimom

Enjoy sugary treats in moderation. 
Gluten-Free Goddess® advises consuming 
no more than 2 tablespoons of sugar a day.