Peaches and Raspberries

At this time of year we can buy peaches from the nearby Mealagh Valley. They are light pink, and delicately perfumed. A summer treat, if ever there was one.

They don't last too long, so after a day or so of admiring them and eating them straight from the fruit bowl, it has to be Peach Melba. Peach Melba is a recipe that every cook has a version of, but nobody's version differs from any other. They are all exactly the same. Why mess with a classic.

Where the riffing begins, is other things to do with peach melba - so you can have peach melba tray bakes, peach melba cheesecake, peach melba shortcake, peach melba parfait, and on it goes.

We riffed on a Victoria sponge recipe, and made peach melba cake.

Peach Melba

4 peaches
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

250g raspberries
1 tablespoon cooking water from the peaches
juice of half a lemon

vanilla ice cream

Cut the peaches in half, lengthways and twist slightly giving you two halves. Don't worry to remove the stone yet, it will come out more easily when the fruit is cooked. Dissolve the sugar in the water in a pan, and bring to the boil. Add the vanilla essence. Place the peach halves in the water, turn the heat down and simmer for about 5 minutes, turning the peaches over about half way.

Allow the fruit to cool in the water while you make the raspberry sauce. Simply puree the raspberries with 1 tablespoon of the cooking water from the peaches. Add the juice of half a lemon, and sieve.

Remove the peaches from the sauce, stone and skin.

To serve as peach melba, simply serve half a peach with some vanilla ice cream, and pour over some raspberry sauce.


Peach Melba Cake

175g self-raising flour
salt
175g butter that has been left out of the fridge, until softened
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
180ml cream
2 cooked peaches (see above)
raspberry sauce (see above)

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC. Grease two 8" cake tins.

Sift the flour with the salt. Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until white and creamy. Beat the eggs in one at a time, and finally beat in the vanilla extract.

Fold in the flour, and divide the mixture between two tins. Bake for about 20 minutes. Remove from the tin and allow to cool.

Beat the cream and spread it over one layer of cake. Top with some sliced poached peaches and sandwich with the other cake. Sprinkle with caster sugar.

Serve slices of cake with some raspberry sauce. Use a fork, because it will be squishy.