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Shikha la mode

Eating Life to its Fullest in San Francisco, CA.

Home » Recipes » Cakes » Snack Cakes » Brown Butter Cornmeal Peach Cake

August 18, 2021

Brown Butter Cornmeal Peach Cake

Cornmeal adds grit and brown butter adds nuttiness to this summer peach cake. A cast iron skillet makes it 10x better. 

Brown Butter Cornmeal Peach Cake

Creativity has been hard lately. The ingredients are all there— summer fruit, flours, dozens of saved IG photos for inspiration, stand mixer, unstructured weekends (who am I??), better weather. 

This is my favourite time of year to cook—produce is at its best, music is everywhere (except for Donda lol), and usually, I’m bursting with ideas of what to make and tearing apart our kitchen. But this time it’s different. 

We’re 1.5 years into the pandemic and while life for us (privileged, affluent, Western) has improved, life elsewhere has not. Externally, I’m overwhelmed by news. Internally, I’m overwhelmed by tides of want, obligation, and questioning. I wanted a job with more responsibility but I’m working more and sleeping/exercising less. I don’t care much for having a wedding but friends and family expect one, even though I have serious doubts if many of them could even come. I want to travel but don’t want to be ignorant. I want meaning in this new life but I don’t know where to find it.

A cycle emerges – the less you do something, the more out of touch you become, and the more upset you get that you aren’t as good as you used to be, and then the more paralysed you become of starting again because you’re so far behind. It sucks!

cast iron skillet cake

I tried something simple— a brown butter cornmeal peach cake baked in a cast iron skillet (simple for me lol, as I’m told I have a different definition of this) to get out of my head a bit. Cornmeal is hard to find here, which makes sense given that it’s a New World grain (read: came from Indigenous American peoples)—I had to order it online and it came in a questionable bag, but it’s all good.

I love the grit cornmeal provides in contrast with the soft peaches and nutty brown butter, and cooking the peaches in the butter first makes them taste even better. Also brown butter is a magic ingredient. We ate some for breakfast and I’ll be eating it for dessert too, at least until I can meet some more people to share it with.

Recipe notes:

  • You don’t need to bake this in a cast iron skillet, but I highly recommend it for maximum flavour and proper browning.
  • You can swap out the milk for Greek yogurt or buttermilk.
  • The batter is thick and bakes quickly, so check the cake at the 15-minute mark.

slice of cornmeal peach cake

Brown Butter Cornmeal Peach Cake

Created by Shikha on August 18, 2021

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  • Prep Time: 40m
  • Cook Time: 17m
  • Total Time: 57m
  • Yield: 1 cake

Ingredients

  • 113 grams (1 stick) unsalted butter
  • 60 grams (4 Tbsp) whole milk or buttermilk
  • 7 grams (1.5 tsp) baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 180 grams (1.5 cups) spelt flour
  • 55 grams (1/3 cup) cornmeal
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 100 grams (1 cup) brown sugar
  • 2 large peaches
  • Turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Place your cast iron skillet over medium heat and add the butter. Melt the butter completely and continue to cook until it turns brown and nutty, 7-8 minutes. It'll be done when it looks uniformly brown and smells really good.
  3. Remove from heat and let cool.
  4. While the butter cools, slice your peaches as thinly and evenly as possible.
  5. Pour the brown butter from the skillet into the bowl of a stand mixer but do NOT scrape out the skillet. You'll use that butter in a sec.
  6. Add brown sugar to the stand mixer bowl and beat on medium speed for 2-3 minutes until well combined.
  7. In the meantime, add the sliced peaches to the skillet, place over medium heat, and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently, until the peaches have softened and are coated in the leftover brown butter. Pour peaches into a small bowl and set aside to cool.
  8. Combine cornmeal, spelt, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.
  9. To the stand mixer, add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  10. Change mixer to low speed and add vanilla, flour mixture, and milk. Mix on low until just combined, scraping down the bowl as needed - the batter will be fairly thick. Do not overmix.
  11. Scrape batter into the skillet and spread evenly. Neatly arrange the peaches over the batter in a pattern of your choice - you'll have extra peaches, so you can overlap them over each other or just eat them.
  12. Sprinkle the peaches liberally with turbinado sugar and place skillet into the oven. Bake for 15-17 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack before serving.
  • Print

Filed Under: Snack Cakes Tagged With: breakfast cake, Brown Butter, cast iron skillet, cornmeal, peach, Recipe, skillet cake, snack cake, summer baking, summer dessert

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jolene says

    August 22, 2021 at 4:59 am

    Will this recipe suffer if made with all-purpose flour?

    Reply
    • Shikha says

      August 22, 2021 at 7:27 am

      You can def use AP flour! It will turn out just as good.

      Reply

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About

Shikha here - a pastry chef, runner, and writer based in San Francisco. I've worked in several Michelin-starred restaurants and blasted a lot of hip hop during prep service. Now I develop recipes, write, run races, and teach classes so you too can eat life to its fullest.

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