I remember when I was a little girl, my mom used to make tomato passata (like every Italian mama). It was a yearly activity we would all partake in the weeks prior to going back to school.
The memories of spending the weekend cleaning the garage to prepare for days of crushing tomatoes wasn’t always an easy sell for a kid (especially when your Canadian friends spent the weekend at the park catching frogs and stuff). In hindsight, however, I wouldn’t trade the memories we made with our extended family on those busy weekends for anything!
The one thing my mom DID do that wasn’t really an Italian thing was to “can” peaches…and the memory of that activity was glorious.
It was a tedious job that my mom told us was for one person – her – so we weren’t allowed to help (still not sure about the logic behind that, but, whatevs). The thing I do remember about canning peaches, however, was patiently sitting on the stairs for my mom to bring us a plate of the first warm peaches that she skinned and sliced…almost to say she was bringing them to us to get our stamp of approval so she could start jarring all the peaches that we would use all winter long.
I’d say that was a pretty awesome trade-off.
Peaches have always been a favourite of mine…not the ones from the store but, rather the ones my dad would drive all the way to Niagara to pick up for us (yes, we love food that much!!). As soon as he would drive up the driveway, we would run out the door, grab a peach and start devouring! The juice would drip down my chin … I couldn’t eat them fast enough!
Now, I savour every minute of peach season…preserving what ever I can (see here for canning and freezing peaches). I love making peach pie (below…)
Even if you have a few peaches, you should try to preserve some for the winter!!
If you don’t do anything, at least try your hand at this coffee cake! It is full of peachy goodness!
It’s a lovely, moist coffee cake base layered with glorious peaches and finished with a buttery topping that is super yummy!
And baked up, it is the best air freshener around!!
It freezes well but you won’t have to worry about that because you won’t have any leftovers!
I hope I’ve convinced you to try your hand at this! You’ll be hoping peach season was all year long!!
Local Ontario Peach Coffee Cake
Ingredients
Cake Batter
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 1 tsp maple extract (or sub in vanilla)
- 1/2 cup yogurt
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
Peach Topping
- 4-5 large peaches, sliced
- 3 tbsp butter, melted
- 11/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1/2-1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 4 tbsp all purpose flour
Icing (optional)
- 1 tbsp butter, room temperature
- 1 tsp maple extract (or sub in vanilla)
- 3/4 cup icing sugar
- 3 tsp heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare 9 x 13-inch pan with cooking spray.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, beat eggs for 1 minute, then add oil, extract, milk and yogurt and beat for two minutes.
- In a separate bowl, mix flour baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar; add the dry mixture to the wet; mix until well incorporated (do not over mix). Pour the batter into the prepared pan and place all the peaches over the batter.
- In separate bowl, mix melted butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and flour; spread/crumble the mixture over the peaches/batter.
- In a small bowl, mix together the icing ingredients (if using) in a small bowl until smooth.
- Bake for 60-70 minutes, checking with a long pick or skewer poked into the center comes out clean after about 55-60 minutes. Let cake cook and then drizzle with icing (if using)