a project

i have a lot of recipe books. sometimes i might think too many, but i am going to just stick with a lot. one of the problems is that i have not made things out of a good number of them. so that is my new project, at least once a week i am going to choose a new recipe out of a different book, make it and share it. considering i have successfully made two such things over the past week and a half i guess i need to get caught up...

... and i will but first, i'm going to bitch for a second, i can be such an idiot. i bought myself a lovely little wedge of saint andre cheese and a crusty roll to have for lunch today. since the cheese needed to come back up to room temperature i had it sitting on a plate in my kitchen. of course i had the plate pushed all the way back towards the wall so that a certain 4 legged creature would not be tempted to stretch her tongue out onto my little treat. well you can see where this is headed, the call of the triple cream was just too strong and now i all i have is some crusty bread. well, some crusty bread and a very happy dog.

Ginger Peach Upside Down Cake

From Food and Wine Best of the Best, volume 9

For Topping

4 tbs unsalted butter

¼ c packed light brown sugar

2 c canned peach slices (in heavy syrup) drained and dried of excess moisture

2 tbs minced crystallized ginger

For Cake

1 1/3 c unbleached flour

1 ½ t baking powder

¼ t salt

½ t ground ginger

8 tbs butter

1 c sugar

2 large eggs

1 ½ t vanilla

½ c milk

Preheat the oven to 350

Melt butter in a round 9” pan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and cook, stirring, until smooth (about 3 mins). Remove from heat.

Arrange attractive circles out of the peach slices in the melted sugar mixture, making sure not to crowd them and keeping ¼ “ from the sides of the pan.

Sprinkle crystallized ginger over the peaches and set aside.

Wisk together first 4 cake ingredients in a small bowl.

In a large bowl use a hand mixer to beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. While continuing to beat mixture add eggs one at a time, then vanilla. On low add half the flour, then all of the milk, and finally remaining flour. Do not over beat.

Carefully and evenly distribute cake mix in the pan over the peaches.

Bake 40-45 minutes, until done. Cool for several minutes before inverting pan onto cooling rack and continuing to cool.

** I also made this using canned pears, which I might have actually preferred…

** Also a good idea to put a cookie sheet under the pan while baking in case any of the buttery goodness escapes (which it did for me).