Peach Cobbler Pound Cake (Recipe Inspired by GLORY ROAD)

One of the reasons I love Southern fiction is that it relies heavily on food to tell its story. A good meal acts as a bonding ritual between friends and family, and a delectable dessert is enough to make you forget the worries of the day, at least temporarily. This book-inspired recipe blogger was thrilled to find that Glory Road contained more than enough mouth-watering inspiration.

The peach cobbler that main character Gus bakes up is known as the best in town; she even offers a free slice with every purchase from Jessie’s garden center. (If that doesn’t get you into gardening, I don’t know what will.) It’s definitely the featured dessert of the novel, so I knew that my book-inspired recipe would have to include a peach cobbler of some kind.

Being a good Northern girl, I’m not really familiar with cobbler; I find that we make more crisps and crumbles in the Northeast. I did a little Pinterest research, and it turns out that a cobbler is similar to a crisp, with the exception being that the fruit is covered by drops of dough instead of a crispy topping.

*Makes skeptical face* Fruit with drops of dough. Sounds…fruity. Which is nice, but…I don’t know about you, but this carb lover is all about the crust when it comes to baked goods. Hand me a good apple turnover or blueberry pie, or, heck, even a Pop-Tart, and there’s a good chance I’ll eat all the crust while leaving the fruit filling behind. That’s just how I roll.

All due respect to Gus, but I don’t think any kind of cobbler, peach or otherwise, has nearly enough dough-to-fruit ratio to suit me. I knew that if I did an ode to peach cobbler, I’d have to amp up the carb factor.

So…I decided to shove the cobbler into a cake.

In the words of Ina Garten, How bad could that be?

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Peach Cobbler Pound Cake. As we all know, I love me a good pound cake. It’s also a classic Southern dessert that’s mentioned in Glory Road, and I loved the idea of combining succulent, baked peaches with a thick, buttery pound cake.

It’s not exactly peach season in New Jersey, so I used thawed frozen peach slices for this recipe. Having discovered this past summer that cinnamon, ginger, and brown sugar pair well with stone fruit, I macerated the peaches a bit before swirling the juicy mixture into the pound cake batter.

This Peach Cobbler Pound Cake has a delightfully crunchy crust with a soft, moist crumb inside. The cake is packed with flavor, both from the vanilla and brown sugar in the batter and the sweetly spiced peach juice swirled through the loaf. And, the best part — the peaches have softened into a jammy, luscious mess near the bottom of the cake, giving you that fresh, fruity taste and texture reminiscent of a peach cobbler. A bite of this treat is the best of both worlds — cake and cobbler.

Most pound cakes take awhile in the oven because of how dense they are, and this Peach Cobbler Pound Cake takes even longer due to the pockets of fruit hiding inside. Make sure you bake the cake for around an hour and a half — and then let the cake cool completely before removing it from the loaf pan. Dust it with a lil’ powdered sugar, and you have yourself a perfectly pretty sweet for your dessert table, Southern or otherwise.

Feel free to invoke additional Southern charm while baking this Peach Cobbler Pound Cake by belting out some Dixie Chicks or that song about a wagon wheel by the guy from Hootie and the Blowfish (which gets a shout-out in Glory Road, btw). I may or may not have done this in my own kitchen. While author Lauren K. Denton doesn’t mention a lot of country music in her novel – she sticks mainly to 90s tunes and classic rock, two of my favorite music genres – I feel Gus would have approved my musical selections as I channeled her culinary creativity.

Peach Cobbler Pound Cake

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 25 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 45 minutes mins

Servings 1 loaf

Ingredients

  

PEACH SWIRL INGREDIENTS

• 8 oz frozen sliced peaches, thawed and cut in half
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger

CAKE INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• powdered sugar, to taste

Instructions

 

PREP INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat oven at 325F.
• Spray a 9x5 loaf pan with non-stick baking spray, then line it with a piece of parchment paper. Place the prepared loaf pan on a baking sheet. Set aside.
• Mix together the peach swirl ingredients and set aside.

BAKING INSTRUCTIONS

• Using a hand mixer, whip the softened butter in a medium mixing bowl until smooth. Add the ¾ cup granulated sugar and ¾ cup light brown sugar, beating well after each addition until all ingredients are combined and smooth.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract.
• In a separate small mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda.
• Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk to the egg mixture in small increments, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
• Pour ½ of the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth to all sides, then pour about ½ of the peach swirl mixture (juice included) on top of the smoothed batter.
• Add remainin half of batter and then top with the remaining half of the peach swirl mixture.
• Take a butter knife and swirl the peaches through the batter, then sprinkle 1 tbsp of brown sugar over the top of the swirled batter.
• Place loaf pan on the baking sheet and bake in oven at 325F for about 85 minutes, or until toothpick stuck into the center comes out completely clean and the top of the cake is a deep golden brown.
• Let cake cool completely before removing it from the loaf pan. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.