My love of bad puns is slightly embarrassing. Slightly.
The Ingredients
- 1½ cups white whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp allspice
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp orange rind
- 1 stick butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 15oz can peach slices
- ±1 cup raisins
- ±½ cup chopped walnuts
The recipe itself doesn't actually specify what kind of flour to use. Looking at all the ingredients, I decided it would be easy to make this a little healthier by using white whole wheat rather than all-purpose.
The original recipe calls for ½ tsp of ginger, but I don't have that, so I replaced this ingredient with nutmeg. It also calls for a 16oz can of peaches, but those don't exist, at least not anymore. Gotta make do with whatcha got.
I used ½ cup golden raisins, and ½ cup regular raisins.
The Process
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy, like an eevee.
Beat in the egg.
Drain your peaches well, and stir them into the mix by hand.
Grate your orange rind. To get one dense teaspoon, I had to grate about ¾ of a medium orange.
In a separate, small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, spices,
and orange rind.
If you're using a standing mixer, these steps can be done while the blending occurs.
Stir in the dry mix by hand. I stirred in half at a time to make it easier.
Then add the walnuts and raisins, and stir those in as well.
Don't be surprised if your peaches don't stay completely in tact while you mix everything together; this is perfectly fine, and expected!
The original recipe said to grease an 11"x16" baking pan/sheet, then spread the dough evenly across the entire pan. I found that I just didn't have enough dough for this, so I just spread it out as far as I could, then made a straight raw edge.
I think the reason I might not have had enough was that the recipe might have intended the peaches to be somewhat blended (with an electric mixer) into the liquid mix, which would have added some more volume. However, it's not clear at all whether you're actually supposed to do this or leave the slices in tact. (Don't ya love confusing, unspecific recipes?) I decided I wanted to have big peach chunks, rather than have it almost pureed throughout the batter.
I also had 1oz less peaches than intended, but I don't think that would have filled up the entire baking pan.
Bake 15-20 minutes, until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
It doesn't actually really matter how long you let it cool before you begin to cut the sheet into squares, but I'd say to let it cool at least little bit.
The cake (it's not really a cake, but I don't know what else to call it) is quite moist, which makes it super easy to cut. I just used a small metal spatula with a sharper edge. The moistness also makes it a little crumbly though. Also it is just impossible to cut walnuts cleanly, so expect to be missing small tiny spots where a walnut popped out of the cake when you tried to cut in its path.
Drain your peaches well, and stir them into the mix by hand.
Grate your orange rind. To get one dense teaspoon, I had to grate about ¾ of a medium orange.In a separate, small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, spices,
and orange rind.
If you're using a standing mixer, these steps can be done while the blending occurs.
Stir in the dry mix by hand. I stirred in half at a time to make it easier.
Then add the walnuts and raisins, and stir those in as well.
Don't be surprised if your peaches don't stay completely in tact while you mix everything together; this is perfectly fine, and expected!
The original recipe said to grease an 11"x16" baking pan/sheet, then spread the dough evenly across the entire pan. I found that I just didn't have enough dough for this, so I just spread it out as far as I could, then made a straight raw edge.I think the reason I might not have had enough was that the recipe might have intended the peaches to be somewhat blended (with an electric mixer) into the liquid mix, which would have added some more volume. However, it's not clear at all whether you're actually supposed to do this or leave the slices in tact. (Don't ya love confusing, unspecific recipes?) I decided I wanted to have big peach chunks, rather than have it almost pureed throughout the batter.
I also had 1oz less peaches than intended, but I don't think that would have filled up the entire baking pan.
Bake 15-20 minutes, until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
It doesn't actually really matter how long you let it cool before you begin to cut the sheet into squares, but I'd say to let it cool at least little bit.
The cake (it's not really a cake, but I don't know what else to call it) is quite moist, which makes it super easy to cut. I just used a small metal spatula with a sharper edge. The moistness also makes it a little crumbly though. Also it is just impossible to cut walnuts cleanly, so expect to be missing small tiny spots where a walnut popped out of the cake when you tried to cut in its path.
The Final Product
Some Notes
These squares are super flavorful, with both the spices, and then the raisins and peaches on top of that.
The raisins or walnuts are optional, but I'd definitely make sure to have at least one or the other in the recipe. You could replace the raisins with craisins. If you really don't want raisins, walnuts, or craisins in your recipe, you could add another half can of drained peaches (though seriously if you don't want any of these in your recipe just why have you read this far).
The entirety of this recipe is 2850 calories. If you cut it into 25 pieces, that would be 114 calories per square. Which isn't too horrible. And 1/3 of those calories come from the peaches, raisins, and walnuts; at least those parts are healthy calories!
If I Could Do It Again....
I'd use ginger instead of nutmeg, like the original recipe called for.
I'm not sure if it'd be worth it to cut the peaches into big chunks. Since it would be so easy, I think I would cut the slices into either halves or fourths before adding them to the batter. This would just make it more evenly distributed (I had some clumps with lots of peaches, and some with hardly any).
I'd replace the brown sugar with a cup of applesauce, and also half the butter to reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe. This would reduce the recipe by a whopping 1000 calories!! Whoop whoop!
The flavor of the applesauce would also compliment the spices and fruits and nuts so seriously I think it'd be perf.
I'm not sure if I'd use a 9"x13" pan. Hrmmm. Don't think so; what I did this time worked perfectly. Using a 9"x13" pan would probably be a bit too small, which would thicken the squares and make the baking time a little trickier. Things to keep in mind if you do decide to try a smaller pan.
The Final Verdict
This recipe is definitely not lacking in flavor! It really packs quite a punch. Determine for yourself whether this is a good or bad fact.
Not my absolute favorite recipe, but it's not horrible by any means! It's also definitely healthier than most of the other ones I make. I'll definitely be remaking this recipe with apple sauce - sure hope that works because that would seriously be awesome!
This recipe would make for a good school lunch desert, or an after-school snack.
Not my absolute favorite recipe, but it's not horrible by any means! It's also definitely healthier than most of the other ones I make. I'll definitely be remaking this recipe with apple sauce - sure hope that works because that would seriously be awesome!
This recipe would make for a good school lunch desert, or an after-school snack.
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