Napa Farmhouse 1885™: Peach & Blackberry Cake with Brown Butter Glaze

I'm back....and I brought cake!

It has been over a year since my last post. I really missed you guys. The past year has been crazy. I spent nine months as the Acting Executive Director of our local animal shelter and worked 70 hour work weeks during that time. It was supposed to be a two-three month assignment but went three times as long. Then, just as the new director was hired, I fell in love with a very shy, scared, formally abused dog that I just had to adopt. (Of course, I fell in love with every dog and cat in the shelter, but this one ripped my heart out.)

The boys watching me get ready. Jax is one the right.

So I have spent most of the summer working to develop a bond with our newest dog (Jax.) It has been a long and sometimes painful process. He is terrified of men, and I am working with the shelter's trainer to establish trust between Jax and my husband. Very slow going, so please keep this sweet boy in your thoughts. The best thing for all of us is to live our lives as normally as possible so he gets used to being part of a family...I am blogging today while both dogs sleep at my side...and my husband watches football. Pure happiness.

Yesterday was Saturday, and there was a hint of Fall's crispness in the air. Our local farmers' market carried beautiful peaches and the sweetest blackberries I have ever tasted. Nothing to do but bake a cake, right? I am always happy when cooking or baking so having the time to hang out in the kitchen for the day was a gift. Cake, homemade pasta, homemade pesto sauce, salad from ingredients grown in our garden...perfect day.

I have baked all of my life but, after moving to Taos, New Mexico with our 7000 ft elevation, I was lost. I didn't know how to make my tried and true recipes work with our higher altitude and needed help from numerous online sources and cookbooks. This cake is an adaptation from one of my favorite bloggers, Mountain Mama Cooks. Her recipes are tailored for cooking in the mountains. I tend to pick something from her blog as a starting point and either make it exactly as is...or try some slight tweaking. I used her Apple-Spice Bundt Cake with Brown Butter Frosting and substituted peaches and blackberries for some of the apple. Delicious. *** BTW, this one is not a high-altitude recipe so it should work for anyone at sea level. AND, I did not need to make any adjustments so higher elevation friends...you are in luck too. Enjoy!

Peach & Blackberry Cake with Brown Butter Glaze
(adapted from the Mountain Mama Cooks blog)

Ingredients:

2 cups white, unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups diced fresh peaches

1 pint blackberries

1 Granny Smith apple1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 eggs
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 F degrees. Grease a 12-cup bundt pan. Set aside

In a medium size bowl, sift together unbleached flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves; set aside.

In a small bowl toss peaches, blackberries, apple, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar; set aside.

In a large bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle, beat together both sugars and oil. Add one egg at a time incorporating each one thoroughly. Mix in vanilla extract and apple cider. Slowly stir in flour mixture into wet batter stirring just to combine. Fold in fruit and any juices that have accumulated.

Pour batter into the prepared bundt pan. Bake in preheated oven on the middle rack for 55-60 minutes or until cake is done. (Mine took exactly 55 minutes.) Test using a cakes tester or thin chopstick. Cake is done when tester comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in pan on a baking rack for 10 minutes before turning out of pan. While cake cools, prepare glaze.

For the Glaze:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3-4 tablespoons milk

In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium-high heat until light brown in color, 8-10 minutes. (It took me 7 minutes. Maybe my heat was higher?) Remove pan from heat and pour butter into a bowl. Add powdered sugar, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons milk; stir until smooth. If the icing is too thick, add the remaining tablespoon milk, a little at a time, until consistency is spreadable. Let cool 5 minutes. Then use immediately and pour over warm cake. Frosting will harden as cake cools.

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