If the peaches in the office fruit basket or in my lunch recently are any indication, stone fruit season is not quite here yet. So far, none of the fruit I've sampled has been anywhere near worthy of celebration, so instead for my peach fix I'm still headed for a jam jar.
I had an idea that I would make some kind of baked jelly donuts, but to me, a sweet jam just cries out for some nutty cornmeal to balance it out. That combo reminded me of a skillet cornmeal cake I made years ago with caramelized peaches and chopped lavender, a mental image of which then thankfully reminded me that I hadn't cared for the texture of those pungent leaves flecked throughout my cake, even though the flavor combo was tasty.
That domino effect of a thought process resulted in the idea for these little cakes. As it turns out, a donut pan doubles wonderfully as a mini bundt cake pan. You then have beautiful, peach swirled cornmeal cakes to douse with a lavender-infused glaze, not a sub-par piece of fruit or dry flower bud in sight to distract from the enjoyment.
Cornmeal Cakes with Peach Jam Swirl and Lavender Glaze
Cornmeal Cakes adapted from this Martha recipe, Lavender Glaze recipe found here. This makes about 10-12 mini cakes, but the recipe is easily halved.
For the Cakes
1 cup coarse yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup heavy cream
peach jam, for swirling
lavender glaze (recipe link above)
- Preheat oven to 350. Stir together cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl and set aside.
- With a mixer on high speed, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium and add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl to fully incorporate. Mix in the vanilla and cream. Reduce the mixer speed to low, and stir in the cornmeal mixture in two parts.
- Spoon the batter into the wells of a donut pan (or muffin tin). Dollop about a tsp of jam into each well, on top of the batter, then swirl into the batter using a skewer or a butterknife.
- Bake until golden and starting to crack on top, about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Slide the cakes out of the pan and transfer to a rack to cool.
- Meanwhile make the glaze. Once cake are completely cool, carefully dip the cakes into the glaze and place back on the rack to set.