Nothing smells like summer better than some perfectly ripe and sweet juicy peaches. The smell is just heavenly.

The peaches are fantastic this summer. I sampled one at the store, was knocked off my feet with its peachy perfect scent and sweetness, so I bought a huge crate. Then when I was at home feeding my kids peach after peach, I was worried they would run out at the market, so I went back the next day and bought more. Then I had several large crates of big, juicy, golden peaches. I bit off more than I could chew, and thought I needed to start baking some delicious treats. This peach cake was hands down our favorite!

I took the concept of a pineapple upside down cake and swapped the pineapple for some equally golden and gorgeous peaches. I used my basic yellow cake recipe and deepened the flavor with a caramel texture by subbing out the white sugar for some sweet dense brown sugar. I also added moisture with some sweet peach juice and pureed peaches! What a perfect match. The sweet caramelized topping of the peaches dripping over the moist peach infused cake is just divine. I really intended to eat this with some ice cream. But it seems we ate it all up before I made it to the grocery store to buy some! Oh and make sure you have some people around to help you eat when you bake this cake, because it is that good. Unless you have better self control than me.

The cake whips up very quickly and easily and you don’t even need a mixer. I use fresh juice from these ripe peaches in the batter, which was really no problem extracting since the juice was literally dripping all over while I peeled and sliced the peaches. Any peach that got a bit goofed up while slicing, just gets tossed into the blender to puree for the batter.  Some will ask, “Can I use canned peaches?” Yes, you can but that is not as flavorful, fresh, and clean as using delicious fresh tree ripe peaches. Preservative free and whole-some baking for me! Use firm, ripe peaches, not overly ripe peaches as they will be hard to slice and peel. I found it easiest to first slice the peaches with the skin on, then stripped off the peel off of each slice. Somehow, that thin skin actually holds together all that juicy flesh.

So back to this recipe.

I arranged the peach slices in a pretty round flower design on the bottom of my pan. Notice I used a spring form pan, thinking it will be easier to pop out the cake. Horrible idea. The butter from the caramel sauce dripped all over my oven. I don’t know what I was thinking. At least I realized this before I put it in the oven and set the pan on top of a larger baking sheet. What a mess that made! And I probably lost some of that oozy gooey carmel topping! Hey, it happens. Use a regular round cake pan, not a springform 😉

I mixed the sugar and eggs with some coconut oil and olive oil followed by the pureed peaches. Then combine the flour mixture, and some moisture with yogurt and milk, and you are set for a seriously deliciously moist cake!

This is a moist cake, so it will bake for 35-45 minutes. Mine took exactly 39 minutes.

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YUM! This is my absolute favorite concoction EVER. My kids could not get enough of this. Even the baby enjoyed it (probably felt great on her teething gums!) I have been avoiding dessert lately, and if you know me, that is nearly impossible. So coming up with delicious and healthier alternatives is my current goal in life (among other things!) I  have been blending frozen fruit a lot lately because I learned that I can save much of our produce from spoilage and the trash bin by just freezing it at its peak.

While I have yet to find good mangoes in the midwest, I got some bags of frozen organic mango chunks from Trader Joe’s and they smell and taste incredible! You  just blend these with some frozen sweet strawberries and a dash of heavy whipping cream. The cream whips the frozen fruit into a creamy ice cream consistency. It really is delicious! No sugar added! If you are looking for a fat free treat as well, you could omit the cream and just enjoy this as a sorbet, but the creaminess was just divine. You can try this with frozen bananas and cocoa (coming soon!), frozen strawberries and frozen bananas, coconut and frozen pineapple, the possibilities are ENDLESS. Beware, you will need to have a powerful blender such as the Vitamix or Blendtec so that you do not break your blender!

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