Happy New Year!

For those of you who may not be aware, this week was the Jewish New Year. It's the time of year where we eat a big meal, and dip apples in honey in hopes of evoking a sweet new year. Weirdly, because of the way the Jewish Calendar works, this year's "Leap Year" brings the holiday almost a full month earlier than it usually is. Apples, therefore, are barely in season, and peaches, which showed up in The Box this week, are at the very end of the season. I wanted to create something for our New Year meal that combined peaches and honey. A little bit of time on The Google Machine yielded a Honey Peach Upside Down Cake. I decided to make two.

First step was to once again peel, pit and slice the peaches. Making a mess of my hands and getting peach juice everywhere I sliced about 5 peaches thinly

Then I prepped the cake pans with a circle of parchment paper and plenty of cooking spray. I added a 1/4 cup of honey to each pan and made an effort to spread it out, Thank goodness for offset spatulas.

The Husband did his own with a slightly different pattern. Mine spiraled into the center of the pan, his radiated in lines pointing outwards. I was a little concerned because the recipe told me to "butter" the pan, and I had used PAM, the result seemed to be that the honey didn't exactly spread they way I wanted it to, but a little maneuvering with the peaches and I ended up with what I hoped was a smooth layer. 

After the peaches were arranged, I got to work on the batter. The recipe called for equal parts sugar and honey and butter creamed together, then add the eggs beaten well until combined. By this point, the smell of honey had permeated the entirety of the apartment. Now I like honey, I mean who doesn't, but I didn't realize how sickeningly sweet it smelled until doing this recipe. I felt like I was breathing in diabetes. Ick. If you are doing this recipe yourself you should probably open a window... Learn from my mistake.

Finally I folded in the flour, salt and baking powder and, using a scale, tried my best to divide the batter between the two pans. My peaches accepted the batter well, remaining in place, unfortunately The Husband's design proved less effective, the peaches migrated towards the outer corner of the bowl. I didn't think the design would matter, apparently it does, I learned something.

Baked at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and they looked like this, the apartment by this point was kind of disgustingly sweet smelling belch.

Now all I needed to do was flip over the cake and reveal my beautiful upside down design. At least that was the thought. It was no where near as elegant. Ah well, the final result:

THE VERDICT:
Everyone at dinner that night was very polite, but I don't believe them. This dish was so cloyingly sweet and the peaches were completely missing. It was basically inedible and of the two cakes I made only about 3/4 of one of them was eaten. The other was thrown away. How could I have made it better? well I probably would have cut back on the amount of sugar I think. Or maybe on the amount of honey. The second thing I would probably do is keep the peach slices a lot thicker so they sunk into the cake more and provided it's flavor to the cake. The third thing? Probably not make it again. Ick.

The Recipe (if you are still willing)
Recipe credit goes to Lindsey over at Hotpolkadot.com and can be found HERE.

• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 peaches, sliced
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and position a rack in the center. Butter a 9 inch round cake pan and place a circle of parchment paper to fit on the bottom of the pan. Butter the parchment paper as well and then set it aside.
2. Spread the 1/4 cup of honey over the bottom of the pan then arrange the peach slices on top.
3. In a small bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl with an electric mixer cream together the butter, sugar and honey then blend in the eggs. Add the dry ingredients and mix it until it's smooth.
4. Pour the batter over the peaches and honey then bake it for 30 – 35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Much like the Honey Lemon Pound Cake, this cake will appear raw and jiggly in the middle while the rest seems like it's burning. That's the honey making mischief. Don't worry, it will bake eventually. Just keep an eye on if for the last few minutes. Leave the cake in it's pan and let it cool on a cooling rack for about 10 – 15 minutes.
5. Once the pan is cool enough to touch carefully flip the cake over onto a serving plate by placing the plate upside down over the cake pan then, while gripping both the plate and pan, quickly turn the whole thing right side up. Lightly jiggle the cake out of it's pan and marvel at the honey peach beauty. Enjoy!