Sacramento Digs Gardening: This poundcake is peachy, three times over

Peach halves — Fresh peaches lend their color and flavor to poundcake. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Slice of peach poundcake — This might be the moistest poundcake ever.

I love yellow peaches, especially ones so perfectly ripe and juicy that you have to eat them standing over the sink.

But I'm not averse to baking with them as well, and I'm always on the hunt for a new recipe.

The poundcake recipe here is quite new, a big hit on the New York Times Cooking website apparently. Since it uses peaches three ways -- triple delicious! -- I had to give it a try.

The preparation of the peaches is the only complicated part, and it's all up front. Once they're ready, the ingredients are stirred together and popped into the oven. The cake bakes at just 325 degrees, but during this heat wave it might be better to make it in the later evening or early morning anyway.

This recipe also appears adaptable to other stone fruits, include nectarines, apricots, sweet cherries and mangos.

Choosing the reddest peaches or nectarines will give you a gorgeous color cake and glaze. White peaches or nectarines are almost too sweet for this, I think. I've cut back the original recipe's amount of sugar, but there is still quite a bit of butter and eggs in there, creating a big, rich cake. However, a treat's a treat, especially in peach season.

Triple Peach Poundcake

Adapted from Jerrelle Guy's recipe in the New York Times

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and then cooled to room temperature, plus butter for the pan

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan

3 or 4 ripe yellow peaches, washed and defuzzed, if necessary, but unpeeled

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

3 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup confectioners' sugar, plus more as needed

1 cup granulated sugar

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon bourbon, 1/2 teaspoon rum extract or 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice, optional

Cake batter in pan — This is a lot of batter, but it'll stay in a 9-by-5-inch pan. For

smaller pans, use two or bake the extra batter in a muffin tin.

Optional garnishes:

Remaining peach glaze (see recipe)

Peach slices

Lightly sweetened whipped cream

Instructions :

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan. (An angel-food cake pan or two smaller loaf pans also can be used -- this makes a lot of batter.)

Pit and dice the one firmest peach into pieces about 1/3 inch in size. (Doesn't have to be exact.) Pat the pieces dry and set aside.

Pit and cut up the 2 or 3 remaining peaches (including skin) and place them in a food processor or blender along with the lemon juice. Puree. Pour out 1 cup of the mixture and put it in a mixing bowl along with the melted butter, eggs, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Stir these together and set aside.

To the remaining puree in the food processor or blender, add the 1 cup of confectioners' sugar and, if using, the bourbon, the rum extract or orange juice. (The flavoring helps mask the powdery-ness of the confectioners' sugar, but it's optional.) Blend it on high until the sugar is dissolved. Check the thickness: The glaze needs to be thick enough to stick to the cake but thin enough to drizzle. Add more confectioners' sugar as needed, and blend again. Cover and set aside until the cake is ready to be glazed.

Whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Pour the peach/egg mixture into the dry ingredients and blend well. Fold in the diced peaches.

cake with glaze — Wax paper under the rack will catch the glaze drips.

Spread the batter evenly in the prepared loaf pan. Bake until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 70-80 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before removing the cake from the pan to a wire rack.

To glaze the cake, slide a large piece of wax paper underneath the wire rack. Stir the glaze, and drizzle it over the entire top, letting some drip down the sides. Allow the cake to cool to room temperature. Slice and serve with a pool of extra glaze, fresh sliced peaches or lightly sweetened whipped cream, or just by itself.

RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

baking recipes fresh produce gardening Sacramento peaches backyard produce produce management

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Flowers in My Back Yard Series

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June 2: Sunflowers capture Sacramento's summer attitude

May 29: Are your roses going 'blind'?

May 26: Zinnias are the summer flowers every garden needs

May 19: Plant dahlias now for late-summer flower power

May 12: Know your coreopsis from your bidens

May 5: Mums the word on Mother's Day weekend

April 28: Majestic Matilija poppy is worth a look

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April 3: Make Easter lilies last for years to come

March 31: In praise of a pollinator magnet (small-leaf salvias)

March 24: Azaleas brighten shady spots

March 17: The perfect flower for beginners? Try zonal geraniums

March 10: Keep camellias happy for years to come

March 3: Fruit tree blossoms are a fleeting joy

Feb. 27: Are your roses looking rusty?

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Garden checklist for week of June 14

We'll be back to normal temperatures for mid-June (about 86 degrees) by Thursday. In the meanwhile:

* Let the grass grow longer. Set the mower blades high to reduce stress on your lawn during summer heat. To cut down on evaporation, water your lawn deeply during the early hours of the morning, between 2 and 8 a.m.

* Tie up vines and stake tall plants such as gladiolus and lilies. That gives their heavy flowers some support.

* Dig and divide crowded bulbs after the tops have died down.

* Feed summer flowers with a slow-release fertilizer.

* Mulch, mulch, mulch! This “blanket” keeps moisture in the soil longer and helps your plants cope during hot weather.

* Avoid pot “hot feet.” Place a 1-inch-thick board under container plants sitting on pavement. This little cushion helps insulate them from radiated heat.

* Thin grapes on the vine for bigger, better clusters later this summer.

* Cut back fruit-bearing canes on berries.

* Warm weather brings rapid growth in the vegetable garden, with tomatoes and squash enjoying the heat. Deep-water, then feed with a balanced fertilizer. Bone meal can spur the bloom cycle and help set fruit.

* Generally, tomatoes need deep watering two to three times a week, but don't let them dry out completely. That can encourage blossom-end rot.

* Feed camellias, azaleas and other acid-loving plants. Mulch to conserve moisture and reduce heat stress.

* Cut back Shasta daisies after flowering to encourage a second bloom in the fall.

* Trim off dead flowers from rose bushes to keep them blooming through the summer. Roses also benefit from deep watering and feeding now. A top dressing of aged compost will keep them happy. It feeds as well as keeps roots moist.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushier plants with many more flowers in September.

* From seed, plant corn, pumpkins, radishes, squash and sunflowers.

* Plant basil to go with your tomatoes. There’s still time to plant melons, pumpkins and squash from seed.

* Transplant summer annuals such as petunias, marigolds and zinnias. It’s also a good time to transplant perennial flowers including astilbe, bidens, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia, salvia and verbena.

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