Fresh Raspberry & Peach Cake

I’m kicking myself.  It’s almost the end of June and I haven’t been to our local Farmer’s Market yet.  What happened to the hazy, lazy days of summer?  We’ve been so busy, I’m hardly able to keep up!  The busy days continue this week with a long road trip tomorrow up to the Midwest, for a couple of weeks with our family.  We’re really looking forward to being there.  The many, many hours in the car, though?  Not so much.  It’s the price you pay, for a couple of weeks of family fun…and many more busy days!  The summer will be over before we know it!

So, the Farmer’s Market will have to wait until I come back home, but I’m quite thankful for a local grocery store with a beautiful produce department.  I walked in the other day and there was a fantastic display of all of the summer goodies they had to offer:  Tons of fresh berries, melons, peaches, cherries, nectarines…it was summer fruit heaven.  The cook in me instantly remembered a recipe I’d seen for a beautiful summer cake using fresh raspberries and peaches.  I grabbed a bunch of both and headed back home to bake!

I started by mixing up a pretty straightforward cake batter in my stand mixer.  All of the dry ingredients went into one bowl, while I worked on the wet ingredients.  I beat the butter and sugar and then added some eggs, along with some freshly grated orange zest and vanilla.

Once the eggs and zest were worked in, I took the bowl off the mixer and hand stirred in the dry ingredients.  I carefully folded in half of the flour mixture, then stirred in some plain low-fat yogurt, and then added the rest of the flour.

I noticed that the batter was nice and fluffy, but sturdier than a regular cake batter.  Once the yogurt and flour was mixed in, I spread the batter out into my prepared cake pan.

Next, it was time to work on the fruit.  Have you ever baked something with fruit in it and sadly, taken it out of the oven to find that all of the beautiful fruit you’d placed on top had fallen to the bottom?  No worries with this cake.  This cake has two bake times.  It first bakes for 15 minutes without the fruit, then the fruit is added to the top and the cake is baked a second time until it’s baked through, for about 25 minutes.  The first 15 minute bake time was the perfect amount of time for me to get the fruit ready.

I thinly sliced up a peach and added it, along with the raspberries, to a small bowl.  Then, I stirred in a little bit of flour and some sugar.

As I mixed up the fruit, I crushed some of the raspberries just a bit, to release some of their juices.

After the cake had baked for 15 minutes, I took it out of the oven and carefully laid the peaches and raspberries out on top of it.  I tried to make it as pretty as possible, but if we’re being honest here, I also wanted to cram in as much of that fruit as I could.  That’s good stuff!

After I’d covered my cake in fruit, I popped it back into the oven to finish baking.

Twenty-five or so minutes later, I was thrilled to find this waiting for me…

Isn’t it pretty?  It’s like summer, in cake form!

We let it cool while we were eating dinner, and when I served it, it was still just warm enough.  It was delicious that way, and I was actually quite surprised that it was still just as delicious and moist the next day!  You could easily make this the day before you need it.  The flavors actually really settled in beautifully overnight.

It was a delicious way to end a busy day full of warm summer sunshine.

FRESH RASPBERRY & PEACH CAKE

Adapted from Fine Cooking:  Summer Eats