Week 8 Finalists- Best Peach Recipe

Grilled Mint Julep Peaches by Stefano Coppola

Recipes don't get much easier than this. And who wouldn't delight at the prospect of using Bourbon in a dessert? Peach halves are lightly grilled until barely warmed through and then drizzled with a mint-infused bourbon and brown sugar glaze. Top the whole thing with some vanilla ice cream, and you've got yourself a real summer treat. Stefano Coppola's recipe makes a fair amount of glaze, but you'll be happy to have leftovers. Be careful not to cook down the glaze too much, or it will harden when it hits the cold ice cream.

After separating the mint leaves from the stems, Stefano Coppola had us keep the stems for the glaze. Clever!

We ended up halving the recipe for the glaze, with no effect.

Our glaze cooked very quickly, but in order to avoid it getting too thick, we used a medium-low flame, and watched it carefully.

Our starting peaches. They looked beautiful, but like people, it's what's on the inside that counts. After two were tossed, we ended up using a nectarine and a couple of donut peaches instead. They all worked very well.

Our peaches grilled very quickly, and while we used a very very hot grill, it really only took 2-3 minutes altogether.

The sauce hardened a bit under the ice cream -- truly delicious. Err on the side of more sauce...

 

Simple Summer Peach Cake by Savour

We had high hopes for this peach cake, and we weren't disappointed. We love Savour's headnote about childhood breakfasts served to her by her mother of peaches, milk, sugar and nutmeg, which were the inspiration for this recipe. The cake is chock full of juicy summer peaches, and the addition of ground almonds sets it apart from other simple butter cakes. It's luscious and a bit custardy in the areas surrounding the peaches -- a texture that works when the cake is either warm or at room temperature. Don't be alarmed if the batter seems to curdle when you add the buttermilk, as it will come together again once you mix in the dry ingredients.

We ground almonds instead of using preground almond flavor. It was very loud.

The recipe calls for a cup of sugar, but then asks you to use 2 tablespoons of it first, so we simply measured the tablespoons from the cup!

After we added the buttermilk to the butter and eggs, it curdled rather violently. But no fear: It works out!

This is a nutmeg-specific rasp grater, but any microplane will do.

The peaches macerated with sugar and nutmeg while we prepared the batter.

Pressing the peaches into a single layer. It looked gorgeous!

Rustic and handsome, the way we like our cakes.