I take a day or two off a year to go and do some canning with my mom. 
I grew up on bottled fruit and my mom allows me to share in the spoils if I come and do some labor with her. She is such a loving mom that she gives me spoils even if I don’t come, but I enjoy learned the process and I just like hanging out with my mom too! My parents had a bumper peach crop this year with huge candy-like sweet peaches! I helped my mom can 21 quarts in about 90 minutes. Peaches go extremely fast compared to applesauce. 🙂 She had so many peaches from her tree that she sent me home with a bunch more. This gave me the idea to do a peachy dessert of some kind. The format I had in mind was a strawberry shortcake type treat. I wanted to cake to be something buttery and hearty. My blondie cake came to mind since it has that buttery oatmeal brown sugary deliciousness. I wanted to keep the cake neat, without any spices, so I decided to throw the cinnamon into the whipped cream– that ended up being a dangerously good decision since I could have just eaten the whole bowl of whipped cream one taste at a time. I’ve gotta say, I don’t think I would ever need to eat strawberry shortcake ever again since this dessert is so much more satisfying, at least to me.
End of Summer Cake
Ingredients
- 4 C . Blondie Mix (available here)
- 3 tsp . baking soda
- 1 C . Water
- 1/3 C . Applesauce
- 1/2 C . Olive oil (or vegetable oil)
- 3 T white vinegar
- 12-18 peaches (depending on size)
- 1 large pot of hot to barely boiling water
- 1 sink of cold water
- Cinnamon Whipped Cream
- 1 C . Heavy Whipping Cream
- 1/2 tsp . vanilla extract
- 2 T . Sugar
- 1/8 tsp . cinnamon
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients for 2-3 minutes on medium speed. Pour into greased and floured 9X13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
- Note: This recipe may need an additional 1/4 - 1/2 cup flour since it had some interesting sugar formations in the baked cake.
- Fresh Peaches (you could use canned, but it wouldn't be near as good)
- Blanch the peaches for 30 seconds in the hot water. Carefully transfer the peaches into the cold water in the sink. I do a batch of 6 peaches at a time. Once the peaches hit the cold water I just peel off the skin with my hands. Slice the peaches into nice medium slices and add some fruit pectin to help preserve the color. I don't add any sugar to my peaches as they usually are plenty sweet and they form their own rich sauce after an hour or so in the fridge.
- Pour whipping cream into metal bowl that has just come from the freezer (I also like put my metal beaters into the freezer too, it just helps whip the cream more quickly the colder these things are). Whip until stiff peaks form.
- Assembly
- Put the desired slice of cake into a bowl and top with the peaches and whipped cream. Enjoy!!
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