Peaches, Tractors, Blackberries & Sticky Counters

For those not in or around the Metro STL area there is a land. A land of plenty - pick your own fruit a-plenty. This land is called Eckerts. Each season this wonderland-o-fruit produces...well fruit. Apples, pumpkins, strawberries, and now, June to August PEACHES! Billions and billions of peaches. May be not that many but lots.

Few things bring me as much joy in life
as riding in a tractor to pick fruit.

So this weekend I took the Little People (that'd be Reed and Luke - the nephews who will be here on out be referred to as Little People) to the Eckerts in Belleville. We first enjoyed a tractor ride to orchard -orchards are where peaches are grown right? I know trees but, eh. Forget it.

Upon arrive to the trees of peaches the Little People descended and rotten, bruised, and wormy items that used to be called peaches from the ground. Thus rules were set. No peach (or used to be peach) can be placed into the box unless it is approved by Aunt Laura.

Twenty, "Is this one okay?", "How about this one?", "I found this one on the ground, it is only stepped on a little bit - is that okay?" and we have 30+ peaches, all Aunt Laura approved, in the boxes.

Victory! Delicious, non-buggy victory!

Now, onto the culinary goodness. So, first thing I learned is that peaches go bad fast. Really fast. So with my recipes at hand I set to work.

First Blackberry-Peach Coffee Cake. This is a recipe I got from SouthernLiving.com. Great things come from the south including that recipe and me.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder (different than baking soda - let's just get that straight)
• 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (um I didn't have this, so I used almond extract)
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 cups peeled and sliced peaches (this is like 2-3 big peaches)
• Blackberries - you can't buy these by the single, let's be serious

I recommend peeling the peaches first. It takes forever. Don't even bother preheating your oven yet. It takes forever to peel peaches. And those suckers are sticky! And slippery when they don't have their peel on them. Be careful not to squeeze or bruise them when trying to slice/cut and chop them.

Now you can consider preheating your oven to 350.

Beat butter with an electric mixer and gradually add sugar until blended. Add eggs (it will kind of look gross after this). Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add milk. Add vanilla...um, er...almond extract (same difference right?). This will now look and smell yummy. Like pudding. Or cake batter, who-da-thunk it.

Okay, even though it says non-stick. I find that pans that say that are liars. So I always spray the pan if I want said cake to come out in one piece.

Pan sprayed. Check. Pour in yummy batter. and then placing peaches and blackberries in batter. Now, this started out really cute...and then I realized there were only like seven peaches and four blackberries due to pan space. Not gonna work. So I loaded them on.

Good thing too because when it came out of the oven an hour and fifteen minutes later it looked like this anyway -



Yum. And still pretty.

 

Reviews were good from the flacks at work (I can call them that because I am one). I defiantly think I'll make this again. I'd recommend doubling the recipe and you could make it in a 9x13 for a big family or friends sleep over. I'd say brunch but really, how many people are actually up for brunch on the weekends...or worse than that, not hung over and want biscuits and gravy instead?

That'll be a good way to end that post.

Next (remember peaches go bad fast - really fast) Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce from TastyKitchen.com. I really like this recipe because I literally had everything in the recipe at my house already - WIN!

Ingredients run down:

• 5 - 6 peaches peeled (I know, it sucks, sorry) and chunked
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar (ground cinnamon there is a different between light and brown sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
• 1/2 lemon
• 7 tablespoons of maple syrup (use the real stuff...do it right people)
• 1 1/2 whipping cream (a pint works - there will be a bit left over in the carton, which is annoying but ya know, we deal)
• 3 tablespoons light corn syrup

Let the peeling of fruit commence.....one episode of The Office later.....you may preheat your oven to 350.

Now that this is done you can mix the flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend it. Then cut the stick-o-butter into small chunks with the previously mentioned fork or pastry cutter.

In another bowl, combined peaches, zest from half a lemon. Then squeeze* juice from said lemon half and stir.

*NOTE: This might sound like common sense but I didn't think, "Lemons, like all fruit, have seeds. And if I squeeze the lemon into the bowl - juice will come out...and so will seeds. And the seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl under all the sticky peach chunks. F." So after you use your common sense, which I seem to lack with fruit, and remove the seeds from half the lemon you may squeeze the juice out.

Add 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and stir well. Then do yourself a favor and eat a few chunks of this delightful mixture. Amazing. Could just stop there - oh! and maybe put them on top of vanilla ice cream. Mmmmmm. But we won't.



After you grease a 8" or 9" dish or pan pour in 'peach chunks of yum' and then evenly cover the peaches with the butter/brown sugar mix. Bake with foil on it for 15-minutes. Uncover and bake for another 20 - 30 minutes.



I stuck it under the broiler for a few mins to brown up.
Just something to consider.



During that 35 - 45 minute time frame it is time for the Maple Cream Sauce. Pour the whipping cream into a sauce pan (different than a skillet - lesson learned there) and add 5 tablespoons of maple syrup and 3 tablespoons of corn syrup. Not sure if I did something wrong with this but mine did not become 'cool whip-ish'. It smells like heaven so YAY but not really what I thought it would be. Anyway, stir, stir, stir for about 15 minutes and then refrigerate.

When you serve I recommend warming the peach crip and drizzling the cool cream sauce over the top individually. Don't mix at one time.

I really liked it - very sweet and pretty 'lemon-y' (that is a very technical term) but good all the same. Something I'd serve at home but not bring to a party - hot item, cold item, to many dishes for one...dish. Ya know?

Holy cow - this was a crazy long post. But you got two recipes and hopefully a few laughs.

Yum,

Laura