Peach Blueberry Cake for the Birthday Girl

I swear I know how to make more than just fruit cakes! But it’s summer and there was another birthday in the office…. This time it was Liljana’s, my co-worker and dear friend. She is Albanian and a born locavore, as might be expected from a European who grew up in a Mediterranean climate. I find her stories about family members who never ate food that came out of a box or a bag, drank their fair share of homemade wine, and lived to a ripe old age (108 for Grandpa!) telling. I think I know the reason for their longevity and it’s not because there’s something in the water….

Speaking of boxes and bags, when Liljana and her husband, Alex, moved to New York City and started a family, she did what the majority of Americans do; shopped for food in a grocery store. But as someone accustomed to ultra fresh, highly flavorful ingredients, to say she was underwhelmed by the rows and rows of processed, preserved, and grown-for-transport food she found at Food Emporium and Gristedes would be an understatement.

Once Liljana realized I was a nut about good food, too, we started comparing notes on better shopping options and the Greenmarket came up immediately. Lucky for her there is an easy alternative close to her apartment on the Upper West Side. The Sunday Greenmarket alongside the American Museum of Natural History (Columbus Avenue and West 77th Street) has plenty of fresh produce, homemade breads, eggs, meat, fish, and the most delicious organic milk in the world from Milk Thistle Farm. In fact, the first time she had their milk she flipped. “It tastes just like what I drink in Albania!” Coming from her, that’s something.

Peach Blueberry Cake
Adapted from Gourmet August 2005

This cake is ALL about the fruit, especially the peaches. Every bite is pure peach. Be sure to use the freshest fruit you can find. A couple of farm stands I frequent offer bags of “soft” peaches which are usually less expensive and, while not the best for eating out of hand, are perfectly fine for baking. I picked up Jersey yellow peaches and blueberries over the weekend from Malanga’s farm stand in Warren, New Jersey. To the recipe below I added 2 extra peaches and my cup of blueberries was heaping.

For Pastry
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

For Filling
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons AP flour
1 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca
2 pounds firm-ripe large peaches (about 4), halved lengthwise, pitted, and each half cut lengthwise into fourths (see headnote)
1 cup blueberries (1/2 pint) (see headnote)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Special equipment: 9 – 9 ½” (24 cm) light-colored springform pan, an electric coffee/spice grinder

Make Pastry
Pulse together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a food processor until combined. Add butter and pulse just until mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps. Add egg and vanilla and pulse just until dough clumps and begins to form a ball, about 15 pulses.

Press dough onto bottom and evenly (about ¼” thick) all the way up side of springform pan with floured fingertips. Chill pastry in pan until firm, about 10 minutes.

Make filling while pastry chills:
Put oven rack in middle position of oven and preheat oven to 375°.

Grind 2 tablespoons sugar with flour and tapioca in grinder until tapioca is powdery, then transfer to a large bowl and stir in remaining 6 tablespoons sugar. Add peaches, blueberries, and lemon juice and gently toss to coat. Spoon filling into pastry and bake, loosely covered with a sheet of foil, until filling is bubbling in center and crust is golden, about 1 ¾ hours (my cake stayed in almost 2 ¼ hours before the center started to bubble).

Transfer cake in pan to a rack and cool, uncovered, 20 minutes, then carefully remove side of pan. Cool cake to barely warm or room temperature, then cut into thick wedges with a sharp knife before serving.

NOTE
Pastry may be made and pressed into pan 1 day ahead and chilled, wrapped well in plastic wrap. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before filling.

Serves 8

Italian Plum Coffee Cake

Fruit desserts are my favorite. Serve them warm with a little vanilla ice cream and I’m pretty much in heaven. This year in the Northeast it’s been hard to know if it’s really summer. One sure sign is fresh fruit and the markets have been overflowing with it, despite the rain. One of my favorite recipes is Italian Plum Coffee Cake. How happy was I when I saw small plums at the Union Square market the other day? Thinking “they’re here!” I bought a dozen or so and made my way home, anticipating my scrumptious cake.

Well, whoops, they weren’t Italian plums. Honestly, I knew it when I bought them. They didn’t have deep purple, almost black, skins like Italians plums do. The plums in my bag were red. My desire to make the cake overrode the slight nagging feeling I had that they weren’t the right kind and might not work out as well.

I cut into the first plum to halve it and not only did the flesh look different, but the pit wouldn’t budge. A quick Google search uncovered why I suspect this is an Italian plum cake and not an any-old-plum-cake. Italian prune plums, like all prune plums, are freestone fruit, meaning it’s easy to separate the pits from the flesh. This makes them ideal for baking. The plums I had were clingstones, meaning the pits are not so easy to remove from its flesh. Rather than be put off by a couple of ornery, dinky pits, I pressed on. A grapefruit knife became my friend. A little quick (truly) minor surgery and I was in business. In no time I had all the plums halved and ready to go on top of the cake.

The cake looked and tasted amazing. The vibrant red color actually made it even prettier than the cake I’ve been making all these years. The lush flesh of the clingstone plums was soaked up by the simple, satisfying cake underneath. Now I know I don’t have to wait until the end of summer when Italian plums come into season to make this recipe. To be sure, I will go back to the original when the Italians make their appearance in late August, but in the meantime I have a pretty, juicy stand-in.

Italian Plum Coffee Cake

As mentioned, you can use any kind of plums for this recipe. I'd just keep them on the small side so you see more of the cake poking up between each plum half.

½ cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 cups sifted, unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
12 Italian plums, halved and pitted
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350° F. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and beat well. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt and mix only to combine. Spoon into a greased 9-inch springform pan and place plums, skin side up, on top.

Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle evenly over the batter. Bake for 1 hour or until the crust is golden and tester comes out clean.

Serves 8