Southern Peach Pound Cake and Chasing the Moon

My other passion besides baking, is reading. I L.O.V.E. to read - anything and everything fiction. Christy actually suggested this author to me (Sarah Addison Allen), specifically the The Girl Who Chased the Moon - and I fell head over heels for it. It was so charming, magical and well written that I can easily say it is one of my top 10 favorite books. In it, one of the main characters is a baker and she bakes all of these fancy cakes. At the back of the book there are some recipes of three of the cakes she bakes, so I decided to try one of the recipes (and will try the others soon as well - so look for those posts). This cake was absolutely delicious, was gone within an hour of fininshing and will definitely be a staple dessert in my house for years to come. I am actually making another one this week, but substituting raspberries for the peaches to see what happens.

Southern Peach Pound Cake (as taken from The Girl Who Chased the Moon)

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups fresh peaches (pitted, peeled and chopped)

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating with each addition, then stir in the vanilla

Reserve 1/4 cup flour for later, and sift together the remaining flour, salt and baking powder. Gradually stir into the creamed mixture. Use the reserved flour to coat the chopped peaches, then fold the floured peaches into the batter.

Spread evenly into a 10-in tube pan (I substituted a bundt cake pan), that has been buttered and coated with white sugar (I made sure to coat with plenty of sugar).

Bake for 60 - 70 minutes in a 325-degree oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

 Allow the cake to cool on the pan for 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely (I let the cake cool completely in the bundt pan before trying to remove it). Voila! Southern Peach Pound Cake. (Please excuse my christmas-themed plate. We just moved into our house and I am desparate need of a cake stand or platters).



Disclaimer: This is not my recipe - I take no credit for creating this cake, I simply tried it out and loved it!

Happy Baking!

Kristy

Meet the Bakers

Hello! We are Christy Snavely and Kristy Weaver. We have been friends for about three years now and not only share a fantastic first name, but also a love of baking and trying new things. We initially started baking together and I believe our first attempt was a pastry from the Rachel Ray magazine (picture below). We had so much fun doing that, that we decided we would get together as often as we can to try new recipes, make old recipes better and just have fun along the way. We have done piroshkis, jam, lemon curd and quiches to name a just a few of the items we have baked. We hope you enjoy the ride with us and always remember "At least you can tell its homemade". :)

Christy Snavely

I'm the "C" of the C&K bakery team. My name is Christy and I didn't grow up baking nor do I come from a family of bakers. In fact, the chocolate chip cookies I grew up on were Nestles Slice-n-Bake cookies. My mom worked a full time job so she did not have the time nor the money to make homemade chocolate anything! That is Until Rachel Ray's debut on the food network. Now she is a cooking fool, collecting subscriptions of Everyday with Rachel Ray. A couple of years ago for Christmas my mom even gave me a year free subscription to her magazine. Go figure...Oh we had thirty minute meals alright, that consisted of ground beef tacos or spaghetti with iceberg salad ranch dressing. Dessert if we had anything consisted of packaged cookies and vanilla ice cream with Hershey's Chocolate syrup. After growing up on Sizzler for the all you can eat salad bar, ground beef tacos and spaghetti, I'm not sure how at age thirty-something i've become an obsessed "Foodie", working a catering job and taking professional baking classes. Where and how this all came about is beyond me.


Kristy Weaver
I started baking when I was seven years old with Chocolate Chip Cookies which I would send to my uncle and grandparents in Arizona. The kitchen has always fascinated me - how you can have these random ingredients in your cuboard but then by mixing them together, it creates something fantastic (well most of the time). I am by no means a professional, but I will try pretty much any recipe I find. I enjoy the challenge of baking something new- finding out if I can do it and make it taste good. I hope this blog helps you be inspired to try something. Happy Baking!