Blueberry Peach Coffee Cake

Perfectly ripe peaches and juicy blueberries top a delicious vanilla coffee cake.  Breakfast?  Dessert?  Mid-afternoon snack?  This blueberry peach coffee cake is all three!

Another summer fruit dessert?  I know, I know.  But I just can’t help myself with all this amazing ripe produce, especially when my CSA keeps giving it to me.  It’s like someone is just begging me to make stone fruit desserts.  And who am I to say no?

Spoiler alert: this is probably not the last stone fruit dessert of the season.  In a few weeks, when apples and grapes and not much else take over the grocery store and farmers markets, we’ll be back to those heavy chocolate and peanut butter based desserts (much to my husband’s delight).

But if you just can’t wait, I’ll go ahead and leave a few suggestions from the Bunsen Burner Bakery archives.  How about this extremely decadent peanut butter cup ganache cake or a chocolate peanut butter torte?  Perhaps this chocolate bubble ring is more up your ally, or we can go all the way back to the very first post on this blog — a dark chocolate cheesecake.

But this post is not about chocolate or peanut butter or cheesecake.  It’s about perfectly ripe CSA peaches and juicy blueberries combining into the most delicious blueberry peach coffee cake.  Two weeks ago, I shared a nectarine upside-down yogurt cake.  This is a similar idea, but the fruit goes on top of the batter, rather than underneath.  Okay, but what’s the difference?

When the fruit is on the bottom, the heat releases steam which is trapped under the batter, essentially steaming the fruit.  The fruit winds up nice and soft and delicious.  When the fruit is on the top, it’s more of a traditional baking process.  The fruit is still soft inside, but has a little more texture (and also delicious).  When you bake with fruit on top, the cake itself tends to rise up around the fruit a bit, so it’s not quite as pretty coming out of the oven as it is when the cake goes into the oven, but it’s so good that I promise, no one will mind if it doesn’t look quite so stunning.

I’m calling this a coffee cake — that all-encompassing title that implies that something is perfectly acceptable for breakfast, dessert, or a mid-day snack.  We chose to treat this as dessert, slicing away at it after dinner for a few days (and delivering some to our neighbor to ensure we didn’t eat the whole thing…), but it would be equally at home on your breakfast or bunch table.

It’s sweet, but the lack of any sort of frosting or crumble topping prevents it from being too sweet to enjoy in the morning.  When we host weekend guests, I always like to offer up some sort of quick bread or breakfast cake in the morning, and this fits the bill perfectly — a little something to nosh on before actual breakfast.  It’s light, fresh, and perfectly summery — hurry up and make yourself a blueberry peach coffee cake while fresh fruit is still abundant!

Print Recipe

Yield: Serves 8

Blueberry Peach Coffee Cake

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Perfectly ripe peaches and juicy blueberries top a delicious vanilla coffee cake.  Breakfast?  Dessert?  Mid-afternoon snack?  Yes, yes, and yes!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 large peaches, sliced
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter at medium speed until light and fluffy.  Slowly add in granulated sugar, beating well.  Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until combined.
3. Combine together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Beat at low speed after each addition until just combined.  Stir in vanilla.
4. Pour batter into the prepared springform pan, topping with sliced peaches and blueberries.
5. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until the center of the cake is set and a tester comes out with moist crumbs.  Cool for 30 minutes on a wire rack before unmolding cake; serve at room temperature.

Recipe adapted from Southern Living