Peach Blueberry Cake

Elegant peach and blueberry cake with a rich, buttery, biscuit-like crust.

I found this peach blueberry cake recipe on Epicurious and couldn’t resist trying it!

The crust is almost biscuit-like and has a rich buttery flavor. Although the original recipe calls for the cake to be cooked for 1 3/4 hours, I ended up cooking mine for 2 hours, the last 15 minutes of which were without the foil so the top could brown a little.

The Epicurious recipe doesn’t call for buttering the pan. I found that mine stuck a bit and I had to use a sharp knife to separate the cake from the pan.

So I suggest using a stick-free springform pan or buttering your pan. Adding a round of parchment to the bottom of the pan will help as well.

Peach Blueberry Cake Recipe

  • Prep time: 10 minutes
  • Cook time: 2 hours
  • Yield: Serves 8

If you are using a dark baking pan, reduce the oven temperature by 25°F to 350°F.

Ingredients

For the pastry crust:

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the filling:

  • 1/2 cup sugar (can reduce to 1/4 cup of sugar)
  • 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 1 Tbsp instant tapioca (can sub with a Tbsp of cornstarch)
  • 2 lb ripe, firm, large peaches (about 4), halved lengthwise, pitted, and each half cut lengthwise into four wedges
  • 1 cup blueberries (1/2 pint)
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Special equipment:

Method

1 Make the crust dough: Put flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a food processor and pulse until combined.

Add the butter and pulse just a few times, until the pieces of butter are no bigger than a pea.

Add the egg and vanilla extract and pulse several more times, until the dough begins to clump together and form a ball.

2 Press dough into pan: Generously butter the inside of your springform pan. Place a round of parchment paper at the bottom of the pan and butter the top of the parchment as well.

Press the dough evenly onto the bottom of the pan (about 1/4 inch thick), and about 2 inches up the sides of the pan.

Put into the refrigerator to chill for at least 10 minutes.

3 Prepare oven: Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F.

4 Make the filling: Grind 2 tablespoons sugar with flour and tapioca in a spice grinder until tapioca is powdery. (If using cornstarch instead of instant tapioca, you do not need to grind.)

Transfer to a large bowl and stir in remaining sugar. Add peaches, blueberries, and lemon juice and gently toss to coat.

5 Bake: Fill pastry crust with peach and blueberry filling. Cover loosely with foil. Bake at 375°F until the filling is bubbly in the center and crust is golden, about 1 3/4 hours.

6 Cool and remove from pan: Remove cake from oven and set on a rack to cool, uncovered for 20 minutes. Run a blunt knife around the inside edge of the pan to help release the crust from the sides of the pan. Then carefully remove the side of pan.

Cool cake to barely warm or room temperature Cut into thick wedges before serving.

Note that although the cake will come out of the oven somewhat liquidy. The liquid should gel nicely as the cake cools.