Recipe: Peach-Blueberry Cakefoutis

The last 2023 Wordloaf hiatus extra

Wordloaf, the newsletter will be back from summer break this Wednesday, but in the meantime I have the last hiatus subscriber-exclusive recipe to share, and just in time to take advantage of the end of peak peach season.

Here in New England (and in Georgia too), the peaches, plums, and cherries were entirely wiped out this year by a late, hard frost, but the good news is that the 2023 California peach season was excellent, and I encourage you to take advantage of it before it ends. And I have just the recipe for you to use them in.

This is a riff on a recipe I developed for Cook’s Illustrated way back when, my French Apple Cake. Most French apple cakes are custardy, dense affairs that are closer in texture to a clafoutis than a fluffy cake. They are made more like pancakes, with a wet, eggy batter mixed simply and poured around the fruit and baked until it just sets.

Though how I came up with the idea is lost to time, at some point during testing I wondered whether I could somehow make my version a bit more “cakey” without losing the distinctive signature of the real deal. How I did this was to hold back two of the egg yolks from the batter and divide it up into two portions, one large and one small. I added the yolks to the (larger) portion of the batter that would surround the fruit, and added extra flour to the remainder, to dry it out. I put the fruit layer into the pan first and then spread the second batter over it, followed by a dusting of granulated sugar. Once baked, the second batter blankets the custard-fruit layer with a thin shell of fluffy cake, with a crunchy, cracked top. It’s a bit of a party trick, but it’s easy to do, and I love the effect.

Given that French apple cake is itself a variation on a clafoutis, a dish that is usually made with stone fruit (unpitted cherries, most commonly), it made sense to concoct a version of it using stone fruit. While I like this with peaches, it would be equally nice with nectarines or plums, or a combination of any of them. I’ve added blueberries because those are peaking right now too, but you can leave them out and just add more peaches if you like. I also included them as a model for how you can and should improvise with the fruit here. (Cherries would work too, though I’d remove the pits if I were you, especially since the fruit is more buried within this cake than it normally is in a clafoutis.)

Because this is both cake and clafoutis, I’ve started calling it “cakefoutis,” for short.

I have made several changes to this recipe relative to the original French apple cake, in part to account for the extra moisture most stone fruit shed, and to alter the flavor profile (namely using stone-fruit adjacent almond extract instead of vanilla). I also use an extra egg white in the cake layer, rather than discard it.

The recipe is below, for those who have access. See you all in a few days!

—Andrew

Peach-Blueberry Cakefoutis

Serves 8 to 10

Peach Blueberry Cakefoutis

1.15MB ∙ PDF file

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• The lower batter is very loose, so be sure your springform pan is reasonably leak-proof. (Minor leaking should stop once the cake starts to bake.)

• The blueberries are optional here, you can also add another 75g of stone fruit instead. If you want to use some other combination of fruits, aim for a total of 375g to 400g of pitted fruit.

• To cube the peaches, cut each one into 8 wedges, then cut each wedge into thirds, crosswise.

• The layers of the cake are most distinct when it is served the day it is made. It keeps well for a few days, but the moisture in the base layer will migrate north and soften the top layer over time.

• For the nicest appearance, don’t top the cake with powdered sugar until the last minute.
  
  

Ingredients

450g ripe peaches, plums, or nectarines (3 to 4 pieces), or a combination, pitted and cut into 1-inch cubes

225g sugar, divided (200g plus 2 tablespoons)

75g (1/2 cup) blueberries

210g all-purpose flour, divided (140g plus 70g)

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon fine salt

2 large eggs plus 1 large yolk, divided

225g (1 cup) vegetable oil

242g (1 cup) milk or plant milk

1 teaspoon almond extract

Confectioners' sugar

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease the insides of a 9-inch springform pan and set on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment. Toss the peaches with 1 tablespoon sugar and let sit for 15 minutes.

2. Whisk 140g flour, 200g sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. Whisk 1 egg, oil, milk, and almond extract together in a second bowl until smooth. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk until just combined. Transfer 1 cup batter to a separate bowl and set aside.

3. Separate the remaining egg. Add the two yolks to the batter and whisk until combined. Using a spatula, gently fold in the peaches, their juices, and blueberries. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and use a spatula to spread the batter evenly around the pan and smooth the top.

4. Whisk the remaining egg white and remaining 70g flour into the reserved batter. Using a spatula, spread evenly over the bottom layer of the cake. Sprinkle the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar evenly over the cake.

5. Bake until the center of the cake is set, a toothpick inserted into its center comes out clean, and the top is golden brown, about 1 ¼ hours. Transfer the pan to a rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Run a paring knife around the sides of pan, remove the ring, and and let the cake cool completely, at least 2 hours.

6. Dust the cake lightly with confectioners’ sugar, cut into wedges, and serve.