Peach Picking

As I mentioned in my previous post about strawberry picking, we were planning on making a trip back out to Marburger's Orchard to do some peach picking and last week we did so. It was a hot day (like most days have been lately), so I was anxious to leave as early as possible. Unfortunately, my cohort (Aunt Roar) is not such an early riser, so we didn't get on the road until around 9:30, putting us there at 10:30. I know it's still in the morning, but that hot Texas sun is already in full force at that hour. Luckily we were given some reprieve from the sun using the shade of the peach trees. As I expected, James loved picking peaches just as much as any other fruit.

Since he couldn't reach most of the fruit on his own and he weighs a solid 30 pounds, we decided to give him the job of looking for the fruit that was ready to pick and pointing it out for us. So if you ask him how to properly pick a peach, he will tell you that "they have to be all yellow with some red and orange coloring, no green."

He did an awesome job and in only 30 minutes our box was overflowing. We ended up with 12 pounds of peaches to split between Aunt Roar and I. Since that is such a large amount of peaches, I have been making new recipes with peaches. Here is a recipe for peach cake that turned out wonderfully. It works great for a breakfast cake or a dessert cake with ice cream.

Peach Cake

Ingredients:
3 egg, beaten
1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup orange juice or peach juice if you have it
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, oil, juice, flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, peaches and pecans. Mix thoroughly by hand.
3. Pour into prepared 9x13 inch pan (or bundt pan) and bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 50 minutes or until done.