hello this is chef john from food wishes comma with baltimore peach k that's
right everything I know about Baltimore I learned from watching the wire which
is why I knew very little about this cake all right they really didn't talk
too much about old German desserts on the show but nevertheless when I did
find out about this cake which is really more of a bread I was very intrigued and
decided to give it a try and what follows is my fairly successful first
time attempt so with that let's go ahead get started with the dough which we will
begin by adding some sugar to this bowl along with a package of dry active yeast
which we will activate with some very warm but not too hot milk okay something
around 95 to 100 degrees and you can use a thermometer if you want but I just
tested by feeling with my pinkie which I've had calibrated to be accurate
within two degrees and then we can go ahead and finish up these wet
ingredients with some melted butter as well as one large beaten egg and that's
it we'll take a whisk and give this a mix and once we can feel that all the
sugars been dissolved we can go ahead and add our flour which generally for
things like this especially when we haven't made him before we don't want to
add all the flour at once okay it's always much easier to add if you need it
and by the way I'm using all-purpose here although the word on the street is
is that traditionally some wheat flour was actually used also so just something
to keep in mind if you're into that kind of thing so I dumped some in and gave it
a stir and after just a few moments I could tell it was still super wet so I
went ahead and added in the rest and continue stirring until it was almost
all incorporated at which point I stopped and added the last ingredient
which is going to be some salt and yes I'm pretty sure you could add this right
at the beginning but I'm always getting emails from people that are afraid the
salts gonna kill the yeast and they asked me why I don't add it later in the
process so stirring it in at this point is dedicated to them or maybe I just
forgot there's really no way you'll ever know for sure but anyway I went ahead
and mixed that up until I had a very very wet and very sticky dough and at
this point I was wondering if it was too wet and maybe I should add some more
flour but I kept thinking this is called a cake and not a bread and I do
want to keep it on the moist side and do not want it to dry so I decided to leave
it alone and by leaving it alone I mean cover it with a damp towel and let it
sit in a warm spot for about an hour and a half or until it doubles in size and
while we're waiting for that to happen we can go ahead and prep our peaches and
for that we will use some classic peach slicing technique which means first fine
to see him and cut all the way around like this and then give it a little
twist as separated into halves and then once we pull out that stone we are ready
to slice this into whatever size pieces we want which for me is going to be four
pieces per half which is eight pieces per peach
oh yeah Chef John's pretty good at math oh and by the way go ahead and peel
these if you want but I don't think you should because I think it looks a lot
better if you don't and once baked you do not even know
those skins are there and besides we could probably all use a little extra
fiber but either way we'll go ahead and slice up three or four peaches depending
on the size or until we have enough to cover the top of our dough speaking of
which after about an hour and a half mine had doubled and looked a little
something like this and as I proceeded to deflate this with my spatula part of
my brain was telling me you probably should added some more flour this seems
a little too wet but another dumber part of my brain said you know what it's
probably fine just keep going so I did and I went ahead and trashed for that
into a well buttered baking dish and what we're gonna need to do once that's
all been transferred in is take our spatula and attempt to pull it into each
corner and then even it out as best we can
which for something this elastic and soft and sticky is gonna take you a few
minutes but the good news is for whatever reason that was surprisingly
satisfying to do and then what we'll do once that dough has been thoughtfully
distributed let's cover this in plastic and let it rise for another half hour to
45 minutes or until it roughly doubles in size again in approximately 41
minutes later mine look like this at which point we can unwrap it and we can
top the top with peaches or if you like less words we can top with peaches and
of course we're gonna want to make sure those all go in the same direction so as
not to annoy certain people who would be very upset if we had some go in one way
and some go in the other all right you know who you are
but anyway we'll go ahead and place those on as shown where we have them
almost touching but we can still see a little bit of dough in between and we'll
also want to sort of press those in a little bit so the surface is relatively
flat and then to finish this up I went ahead and drizzled and brushed a little
bit of melted butter over the top maybe more than a little like a couple
tablespoons and then last but not least I finish this off by dusting the top
with some Demerara sugar which is sort of a large crystal light brown sugar but
just a light sprinkle and a regular brown sugar or regular white sugar
should work the same and that's it our Baltimore peach cake is now ready to
transfer into the center of a 375 degree oven for about 40 to 45 minutes or until
nicely browned and cooked through and by the way those times I just gave you or
what I want you to do now what I did which was about 35 minutes and we'll get
to why in a second but anyway at this point I assumed this was cooked
perfectly and I even tested with a toothpick which
came out clean so I thought it was good but as we'll eventually discuss that
wasn't necessarily the case but for now let's forget about that and just focus
on how unbelievably gorgeous this is I mean come on look at that but not for
too long please because if we're gonna glaze this with Jam which I am we want
to do that while it's still hot so what we'll do is take some peach or apricot
preserves and heat that up with a little touch of water so it's brushable and we
will go ahead and give the top a very generous glaze which by the way I'm told
is kind of controversial okay some folks consider a mandatory
while others will say it's an abomination which is kind of harsh but
anyway I'm a glazier from way back so given the option I'm always gonna go
with the glaze over the no glaze and that's it once we have that brushed on
we will simply let this cool all the way down to room tapping
which was not easy but I did and then once cooled I went ahead and cut a slice
in a first class I was very excited I thought I had had beginner's luck and it
was perfect and I have to say that first bite was absolutely delicious
okay was sort of like a peach sweet roll or a peach cinnamon roll without the
cinnamon but then I realized that the dough directly underneath the fruit
hadn't quite cooked enough and was still a little bit
which wasn't necessarily an unpleasant experience but was a little bit odd
texturally and that will be a lot easier to see when I use the fork here so yes
next time I think I will add a little more flour so the dough is a little
stiffer and I'm probably gonna leave it in the oven for about five to 10 extra
minutes in fact it was such a moist dough I probably could have went until
the top was almost too Brown and then pulled it out so fair warning you are
probably going to need to adjust this which is fine since you are after all
the Omar little of this not being too doughy in the middle but overall for a
first attempt I was extremely happy with how this came out and it really is sort
of unique I mean it's not a bread or cake it's some weird hybrid but of
course since we are calling it cake I had to test to see if it would work with
ice cream which it did by the way so to summarize with a few minor tweaks
I think this would be an absolutely fantastic recipe to break out in the
middle of peach season or even with other fruits like plums or cherries or
berries I really think this would work well with all those things and more
but anyway that's it my first attempt at Baltimore peach cake believe it or not
I've heard the original recipe called for sauteed onions on the top as well
and no I'm not kidding so if you happen to try that and it
works send me a picture otherwise I'll just finish up by saying I really do
hope you give this a try soon so head over to food whooshes calm for all the
ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy
you