Peach Upside-Down Cake with Blueberry Sauce

My oldest son, Hayden, turned 9 today. According to the library's summer reading program, he's in the "tween" category. Tweens make me thinks of little girls in braces fawning over One Direction but I'm not quite sure what to make of a tween boy. What do they do? As far as I can tell in my limited experience of being a mom of a tween (one whole day), tween boys love video games, playing soccer, and bugging their younger siblings. At least that's how it is at my house.

 

Hayden's also a little bit of a foodie, at least in my mind he is. For his birthday dinner he didn't ask for pizza or burgers or anything else a typical child might ask for. Instead he asked for black bean soup and a salad. Fine with me, I love black bean soup. He's also a fan of Nutella, a sure sign he has a great palate (right?).

 

As for dessert, I'd considered half-price shakes at Sonic. Easy peasy and no clean up. But of course he didn't want shakes (at this point I'm not sure he's my child...who turns down Sonic shakes?!). He wanted an upside-down cake. We'd had one from the grocery store a month or so ago, and he was fascinated that when you turn the cake over you have a surprise. Luckily I had peaches in the fridge, as I wasn't sure what else I could use for a last minute request like this. It turned out beautifully. I added butter and brown sugar to the bottom of the pan to help caramelize the peaches, and reduced the eggs I normally use in a cake mix to 2 eggs and then 2 egg yolks to make the cake just slightly denser. The blueberry topping was also a last minute idea as I wasn't quite sure how to top an upside down cake. Powdered sugar? Whipped cream? The blueberries bring the cake over the top. The cake is so easy to make yet everyone will think you are a baking genius!

 

 

 

 

Peach Upside-Down Cake with Blueberry Sauce

by Girls in Aprons

 

For the cake:

 

1 package yellow cake mix

1/2 cup water

2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks, at room temperature

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled slightly

1 3.4-oz package vanilla instant pudding

1 cup (8 oz) sour cream

2-3 peaches, cored and sliced

2 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp brown sugar, packed

 

For the sauce

 

1 pint blueberries, picked through for stems

1 Tbsp sugar

 

Mix together the cake mix, water, eggs, egg yolks, vanilla, 1/2 cup melted butter, pudding mix, and sour cream. Set aside.

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Add 2 Tbsp butter to a 9-inch pan and set inside oven as it heats up, watching for the butter to melt. As soon as the butter is melted, sprinkle the brown sugar over the butter, stirring with a spoon to help dissolve the sugar into butter. Add the peach slices to the butter, filling around the pan as much as possible without overlapping. Top carefully with the cake mix, making sure not to move the peaches around.

 

Bake for 25 minutes or until cake is lightly browned and a toothpick stuck in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

 

Cool slightly, then place a plate on top of the cake pan and flip the plate and pan over, allowing the cake to land on the plate. The peaches should be on the top.

 

To make the blueberry topping, add 1 pint blueberries to a small saucepan, using a wooden spoon to slightly squish the berries. The berries will naturally release their juices as they warm up. As the juice starts to simmer, add the sugar and stir. Allow to simmer for 2-3 more minutes.

 

Serve the cake with the blueberry sauce at room temperature.



Lemon Blueberry Bars

I'll be the first to admit I'm a dessert-aholic, but mostly with chocolate. I married into a European family, meaning that the chocolate I've fallen in love with can only be found overseas or in Canada. While I still won't turn down a Hershey's Kiss or a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. But my brother-in-law knows to pick me up a Yorkie Bar and a Flake Bar when he's out of the country (right, Steve?!).

My husband, though, prefers fruit-based desserts. He's a huge fan of those fancy fruit tarts you see at Whole Foods and loves key lime pie, apple pie, and any other kind of fruit pie. His fave, though, is lemon bars. I'm not a huge fan of lemon bars because I've always had them made from a box mix. So when Jeremiah requested lemon bars for Valentine's Day, I decided to go for a from-scratch route. I played around with a few recipes, and my family was willing be guinea pigs for a few weeks. I tried to use my own shortbread recipe but it just didn't seem to work well as a crust, so I borrowed from Allrecipes and found a winner :)

Lemon Blueberry Bars

by Girls in Aprons

Crust (from Allrecipes):

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon almond extract

Lemon Filling:

7 large eggs, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 cup flour

Blueberry Topping:

1 pint blueberries, picked through for stems

2 Tbsp sugar

Juice from 1 lemon

Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Directions:

For crust, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and confectioners' sugar in a large bowl. Stir in the butter and almond extract, and mix into a stiff dough. Press into a greased 9x13 and prick several times with a fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until starting to dry around the edges.

For lemon filling, whisk all ingredients together until blended. Pour over warm crust.

For blueberry topping, combine the blueberries and sugar in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until the berries start to burst, using a wooden spoon to smash the berries into a sauce. Let cool slightly. Pour over lemon filling in three straight lines, then drag a butter knife through the lines to create a zig zag pattern.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until center is set.

Before serving, sprinkle the top with powdered sugar