Cinnamon Peach Cake with Coconut Sugar
My birthday was a few weeks ago and one of the gifts I received was the Wild Sweetness cookbook by Thalia Ho. This cookbook is absolutely gorgeous - it almost feels like a work of art, in addition to a cookbook. I couldn’t resist trying out one of Thalia’s recipes and with fresh peaches available at the local farm stand, the White Peach and Ginger Cake seemed like the perfect option. I made some adaptations to the recipe - namely, I decided to use cinnamon instead of ginger and I swapped out the sugar for coconut sugar.
Coconut sugar is the dehydrated and boiled sap of the coconut palm flower. Because coconut sugar goes through minimal processing, it retains many of its inherent antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals - especially in comparison to the standard granulated white or brown sugars, which are heavily processed. For those of you who may not be a big fan of coconut, I just want to note that the coconut sugar does not have a noticeable coconut flavor. Instead, it just adds a nice light nutty almost brown sugar-ish flavor to this cake and other baked goods.
I will note that the original recipe says to let the cake cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan but I found that my cake started to crack and slightly fall apart when I did this so I recommend waiting longer - ideally an hour or so until the cake has completely cooled.
This cake is the perfect summer treat - so peachy and fluffy. Highly recommend pairing it with some vanilla ice cream as well. Enjoy!
Makes one 8-inch cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
115 g unsalted butter (1 stick), room temp.
190 g (1 and 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
65 g (2/3 cup) ground almonds (I think ground almonds means almond meal but I only had almond flour so either works)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 and 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
150 g (3/4 cup) coconut sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
180 g (3/4 cup) sour cream
3 peaches, chopped into rough chunks
For the streusel:
50 g all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. coconut sugar
Pinch of salt
35 g (about 1/4 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
Directions
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Grease an 8-inch cake pan.
To make the streusel, combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a small bowl. Add in the butter cubes and use your fingers to rub the butter into the dry ingredients until large clumps have formed. Set aside.
For the cake, whisk together the flour, ground almonds, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Cream together the butter and coconut sugar for about 3-5 minutes using either a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a handheld mixer. Add in the eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each is added. Then beat in the vanilla extract. Slow the mixer down and add half of the dry ingredients, mix, then add the sour cream, mix, and then add the rest of the dry ingredients. Fold the peaches in and then pour into the cake pan and top with the streusel.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, until golden brown on the edges and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely before transferring it out of the pan.
