Gluten-Free Peach Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping

It was so hard to let this cake cool before cutting into it.

Why is it when I bake a coffee cake I get all dreamy and gooey inside, like a knee-socked school girl in Latin class, riveted to the patch of peachy, fuzzy cloud against the swaying swatch of blue between the maple tree branches outside the classroom window, imagining love itself is out there, waiting, breathing, just beyond reach, ready to pounce. Like grace. When you least expect it, a gift arrives. Often in a form you don't recognize at first.

Like a plaid shirt.

And hands that juggle.

The truth is, I didn't even know juggling was on my list.

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Gluten-Free Peach Muffins with Almond Flour

Gluten-free peach muffins baked with almond flour.

Today is Labor Day. And here I am working. Editing photographs of peach muffins and writing up a new gluten-free recipe. No rest for the wicked. Or the self-employed. We bloggers toil at our living daily, working through holidays and oftentimes, dinner. We tend and tweak and pretty much live a nerdy geek life. The opposite of glamorous.

Or maybe it's just me.

There are plenty of extroverted bloggers who travel and attend blogging conferences and hob nob. They dine together and smile brilliantly in group pictures, tweeting breathlessly their mutual squee. And I envy them. Sometimes. Just a little.

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Gluten-Free Peach Cobbler

This is not Betty Crocker's Gluten-Free Bisquick mix. Nope.

Is Mercury in retrograde?

And if so, Darling, do I believe it can wreak havoc with recipes? I started out with a different approach to this peach cobbler recipe, you see. I thought I'd try out the new Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Bisquick mix I bought this week. I imagined a golden topped biscuity crust you could sink your teeth into, a melt-in-your-mouth forkful of shortcake, dripping with warm and sticky-sweet juice.

But what I got was a bone white mound of anemic dough (scarily reminiscent of Play Dough) baked into what can only be described as yesterday's mashed potatoes. It didn't even try to turn golden. And it didn't melt in your mouth like a biscuit. It just sat there on your tongue. Flavorless. Bored. Expecting to be admired without effort. Like those fame junkies who are famous for simply being famous. They haven't actually accomplished anything to garner their celebrity status. They just nurture a deeper narcissistic ambition than your average high school beauty queen. They expect adulation because they exist.

Like an awful lot of the gluten-free foods churned out by corporate entities.


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Karina's Gluten-free Peach Cake

A vegan peach cake perfect for a summer picnic.

Lazy summer days are sweet and sticky jewels studded with fresh cut fruit and juicy cakes. Farmers' markets buzz with color and scents. And peaches are the star. Get them while you can, Gentle Reader. Inhale their ripe velvet voluptuousness. Because all too soon they will be gone, and the stony, flavorless winter impostors picked well before ripening, thrown into crates and imported from far off orchards flirting with the southern hemisphere sun will be posing at your market as peaches. But they are not. And they know it.

They don't even try to pretend.

So grab your baskets and get thee to a local farmers' market. There is peach cake and peach crisp, and peach ice cream to be savored.

Some of you may recognize the basic recipe here. It's one I've posted and tweaked. It's not in my nature to follow directions or repeat a success without tweaking it, you see. I just can't do it. My brain chemistry switches to Bored Beyond Belief faster than you can mutter the words peach pancakes on a stick.

Let's just say I was a challenge in school. And in jobs (and okay, relationships) requiring a set routine or specific schedule. Rules and expectations writ in stone give me the itch to break free and play, What if? I just can't do the same thing over and over. I get too restless. I get punchy. And I'm also a big believer in change.

Change is good.

Change means I'm alive, growing and learning. Change means I'm curious, taking a risk, discovering something I didn't know before. Experimenting and sometimes failing or looking like an idiot often comes with the territory. Sure, I might end up feeling inept or totally stupid. Born too late. Or too soon. But will that keep me in my proper place and tame my wanton right-brained ways?

Not on your life, Babycakes.



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Gluten-Free Peach Crisp Recipe

Fabulous and peachy. Gluten-free peach crisp.

 

Recently egg-free, your plucky gluten-free goddess at large has been conjuring egg-free disasters- one after another- in her tiny blue-tiled cocina. And tossing said disasters (affectionately known as drek) into the trash left and right, developing quite an aim despite her gloomy disposition.

She shoots- she scores!

In fact, the greenbacks spent on the alternative flours, gluten-free casein-free mixes, tiny allergen-free chocolate chips and organic bananas could have bought a lovely bottle of Calvin Klein's Eternity. The big bottle. And don't believe what they tell you about subbing eggs with bananas in a chocolate recipe, Babycakes, unless you have a taste for gummy brownies that have a faint but distinct Eau de Baby Food top note.

But in every third act there's a moment. 

You know, that pregnant pause, where our bruised but glistening heroine turns- damp and tendrilled, emotionally raw, soy-free chocolate smears artfully adorning her noble apron- and tucks an errant wisp of hair behind her left ear as she squints into the radiating oven, inhales a whiff of cinnamon-laced peachy heaven and senses deep in her fragile loyal heart she's got a winner. Cue music.

Darling, this summery vegan treat is so luscious your gluten-eating wiener-chomping friends will scrape their plates shiny clean and beg for more. They will. Promise. 

So you may as well make two. One for them. 

And one for you.

All gone.

Gluten-Free Peach Crisp

If oats don't agree with you (some folks have trouble digesting oats), see my other crisp recipes featuring quinoa flakes or simple flour-and-sugar crumble toppings. They're equally tasty!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup certified gluten-free rolled oats

3 tablespoons organic gluten-free vanilla rice or non-dairy milk
3 cups organic sliced peaches
A quick drizzle of organic raw agave syrup
1/2 cup gluten-free baking mix and pancake mix 
1/2 cup organic light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3-4 tablespoons organic coconut oil

Instructions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF.  Grease a 9-inch glass pie plate and set aside.

Place the gluten-free oats in a bowl and soak them in the rice milk for ten minutes.


Toss the peaches with a drizzle of agave and arrange them in the bottom of the pie plate.


Add the gluten-free baking mix, brown sugar, and cinnamon to the oats. Mix well.

Add the coconut oil in pieces. Rub the oat/flour mix into the shortening between your palms until the mixture gets crumbly and moist. If you by chance need another tablespoon of rice milk to moisten the mixture, go ahead and add it. 

Top the peaches with the crisp and crumble topping. 

Bake on a center rack for 30 to 40 minutes, until the crisp is bubbling and golden brown, and the peaches are tender and not too soft. Serve warm or cooled. 

Try not to lick the empty pie plate. 

Okay. If no one's looking darling, go ahead. 

Lick.

Serves 4-6. 

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

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Karina's note:

Concerned about the safety of oats? Read what gluten-free expert Shelly Case has to say about oats.