Peach Crisp Cake – Tender yellow cake layers with a cinnamon oat crumble, peach filling, and whipped vanilla bean buttercream.
Peach Crisp Cake
My Peach Crisp Cake with cinnamon oat crumble has been on the blog for over 5 years, but needed a little updating to match the updates in my cookbook. This cake is one of my favorite cakes of all time! I say that about a lot of cakes, but this one is no doubt in my top ten.
The cake layers are so tender and moist, the fillings are flavorful and add two different texture elements that truly make it feel like you’re eating a peach crisp, and the buttercream is like the ice cream on top!
Ingredients You Need for Peach Crisp Cake
- Cake flour
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Unsalted butter
- Canola or vegetable oil
- Granulated sugar
- Eggs
- Butter extract
- Vanilla extract
- Peach yogurt
I started with my classic yellow cake as a base for this cake. It’s tender and buttery, and almost reminds me of the topping you’d put on a cobbler. I made one change to the recipe and substituted Chobani Peach Greek Yogurt instead of the sour cream. It adds just a hint of peach flavor to the cake, but nothing too strong. I also reduced the amount of clear vanilla extract and pumped up the butter flavor with extra butter extract.
HOW TO MAKE MOIST CAKE FROM SCRATCH
Don’t forget to follow my go-to tips for getting moist cakes that rise well:
- Preheat your oven for 30 minutes prior to baking.
- Use good quality pans like Fat Daddio.
- Spray your pans with nonstick spray and line with parchment paper.
- Make sure to beat the butter, sugar, oil and eggs really well. The mixture should be smooth in texture and nearly doubled in volume when you’re done mixing. THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT!
- Don’t overmix your cake batter once you add the dry ingredients.
- Use room temperature wet ingredients. Not cold at all.
- Use fresh baking powder.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs on it. REMEMBER: the cake continues to bake for a few minutes while it cools in the pan.
Peach Compote
What if peaches aren’t in season when I make this cake?
While I know we all wish peach season was year-round, unfortunately, it’s not. If you decide to make this cake when peaches aren’t in season, you can ABSOLUTELY use canned peaches. Just make sure to use the ones without added sugar. We’ve got plenty of that already in the cake!
Can I make the compote ahead of time?
Totally! I prefer to do this, in fact. Just make sure to store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Cinnamon Oat Crumble
This is probably my favorite element of the cake. It’s a total game changer. The flavor and texture add so much to this Peach Crisp Cake! Make sure you have the following ingredients on-hand for the crumble:
- Old fashioned rolled oats (not quick oats)
- Light brown sugar
- All purpose flour
- Unsalted butter
- Cinnamon
- Salt
Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting
This recipe calls for vanilla bean paste in the buttercream. The bean paste is what creates those gorgeous specks you see. There are so many brands of vanilla and vanilla bean paste. I say, use whatever you can find and is cost efficient. I know prices have gone up significantly and it’s likely they’re not going down any time soon either. You can find vanilla bean paste at Walmart, Michaels craft store, Amazon and even some grocery stores now too. If you’re having a hard time finding paste, use extract – same amount.
How to Make Buttercream Frosting
To get a light and fluffy homemade buttercream frosting, make sure you follow my tips over at: HOW TO MAKE THE BEST BUTTERCREAM
These steps are written up for my vanilla buttercream, but are supposed to be applied to any of my buttercream recipes.
- Sift your powdered sugar
- Use slightly cold butter
- Use heavy whipping cream
- Beat for 5 minutes
- Stir by hand
You’ll want to check out the post linked above for more details on each step.
ASSEMBLY
When you assemble the cake, I think you’ll find it helpful to freeze the cake before applying the crumb coat. I know I usually tell you to freeze the cake after the crumb coat, and I suggest you do that here too, but freezing the cake after you stack it will help stabilize the soft filling.
The end result of this cake is beyond what I hoped for. Honestly, I expected I would like it, but I absolutely LOVE it. I won’t even hesitate to say it’s one of my favorite cakes I’ve made.
Hope you love it too!
Video Tutorial
This video is 100 years old, but it still shows the assembly process well 🙂
Other Fruit-Filled Cakes You’ll Love
Peach Crisp Cake
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
- 3 cups plus 3 tablespoons (366 g) cake flour
- 2 teaspoons (8 g) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups (400 g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (73.3 g) canola oil
- 5 eggs, room temperature
- 2 egg yolks, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons (8.4 g) butter extract
- 1 teaspoon (4.2 g) clear vanilla extract
- 1 cup (245 g) Chobani Peach Greek Yogurt, room temperature
FOR THE CRUMBLE
- 3/4 cup (67 g) oats
- 1/4 cup (50 g) light brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup (30 g) all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons (42.4 g) unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
- 1/2 teaspoon (1.32 g) ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon (2 g) salt
FOR THE COMPOTE
- 2 cups (450 g) peaches chopped, fresh or canned
- 2 tablespoons (27.5 g) light brown sugar, packed
- 1 teaspoon (2.5 g) cornstarch, dissolved in 1 Tbsp cold water
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
- 2 cups (452 g) unsalted butter, slightly chilled
- 6 cups (750 g) powdered sugar, measured and then sifted
- 1 tablespoon (12.6 g) vanilla bean paste
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup (57.75 g) heavy whipping cream
- *This buttercream recipe makes enough to fill and cover your cake. If you want to add additional piping you’ll want to make an extra ½ batch.
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Spray three 8-inch with non-stick spray, line the bottoms with parchment paper and spray again. Set aside.
- In a medium size mixing bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the butter, oil, and sugar. Beat on medium speed for about 3 to 5 minutes, until light and fluffy.
- Turn the mixer to medium-low and add the eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl in between each addition. Add the extracts and then turn the mixer to medium-high and beat for an additional 3 minutes. We want the texture to be smooth, the color to look lighter, and the volume to have nearly doubled in size.
- With the mixer on low, alternately add the flour mixture with the Chobani yogurt, starting and ending with the flour. Mix until just combined.
- Evenly distribute the cake batter in the three pans, about 16 to 17 ounces of batter in each 8-inch pan.
- Bake the cakes for about 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out with only just a few crumbs on it.
- Cool the cakes on wire racks for about 10 minutes. Carefully invert the cakes onto cooking racks to cool completely. If you don’t plan to stack and decorate the cake right away, level the cakes if needed and then immediately wrap each layer in plastic wrap or tin foil and freeze.
- About an hour before assembly, remove the cake layers from the freezer.
For the Crumble
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, butter, cinnamon and salt. Mix by hand with a wooden spoon until the mixture resembles clumps of sand. Spread the crumble over the parchment paper and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring halfway through. The crumble should be golden brown. Let it cool completely and then crumble the mixture into smaller pieces, if needed.
For the Compote
- Place 1 cup of the peaches and the sugar into a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Transfer mixture to a small food processor or blender and pulse until it becomes more of a puree. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan.
- Add remaining 1 cup of peaches and cook for 5 minutes. Add cornstarch slurry and simmer until thick. Cool completely before using on cake.
For the Buttercream
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream the butter on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the powdered sugar, followed by the heavy cream, vanilla bean paste, and dash of salt.
- Continue to beat the frosting on medium-high speed for an additional 5 minutes.
- Before frosting your cake, mix the frosting by hand with a wooden spoon to push out the air pockets.
Assembly
- Place the first cake layer, top side up (crumb side up), on a cake board or cake plate. Using an offset icing spatula, spread a thin layer of frosting over the cake layer. This creates a barrier between the cake and peach filling so the cake doesn’t become soggy.
- Pipe a rim of frosting around the edge of the cake layer. This will help support the cake layers and prevent the peach filling from spilling out. (You may even need to pipe a second time over the first rim you made).
- Spread about half of the peach filling on the cake layer.
- Sprinkle about half of the crumble over the peach filling.
- Gently place the second cake layer on top of the filling and crumble and repeat steps 2 to 4.
- Place the final cake layer top side down on the second layer of filling.
- Freeze the cake for about 10 minutes to help set the frosting and filling, making it a bit more stable for when you frost. If the cake still feels wobbly, add a dowel to the center of the cake (or you can even use drinking straws for this).
- After the filling is set, use a small amount of frosting to apply a crumb coat around the entire cake. Freeze the cake again for another 10 minutes to set the crumb coat.
- After the crumbs are locked in, continue to frost and decorate the cake.
It was delicious and very easy to follow!