Just Peachy

This being my first year living in Minnesota, and my first year in a little while living in a temperate, northern climate, I find myself still getting used to the different times of year that foods are available freshly and locally.

In Berkeley, peaches were overflowing at the farmers markets starting in early June. I only just found some here (well, they're from Wisconsin- but close enough, right?) last week! So I
decided to pull out my mom's Peach Crumb Cake recipe. As always, I had to adapt it to be vegan, but I think the adjustments turned out pretty darn delicious.

Vegan Peach Crumb Cake:

Topping Ingredients: 1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
6 tbl unsalted nondairy margarine
3/4 tsp cinnamon
Cake Ingredients: 1 stick unsalted nondairy margarine
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup canola oil
2/3 cup soymilk
1 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 large peaches peeled and sliced (peeling is optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make topping: combine all topping ingredients in a food processor or blender until crumbly.

To make cake: Butter and flour an 8" square pan. Cream butter in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together maple syrup, oil and soymillk. Add to butter and mix well. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt. You may need to add extra flour if the batter is too liquidy. Beat batter until all ingredients are combined and pour into pan. Arrange peach slices in overlapping rows over batter and sprinkle topping over them. Make sure to put enough topping around the edges or the batter will rise up over the topping (that's ok too, but doesn't look quite as nice).

Bake for 50-60 minutes, test with toothpick to make sure it's done. Enjoy.

**Felicia! I just realized that I forgot to send you this recipe when you had all those peaches. Sorry! Hopefully you can try it with some of the frozen peaches you've got...