Alice Waters Baked Peaches

The Art of Simple Food Page 366

**can also be done with nectarines

This is a great way to use in season peaches as a light dessert.  If you have never heard of Alice waters, you have been missing out.  She is well known for a more natural way of eating.  She uses GOOD, simple ingredients in her recipes. She mainly focuses on sustainable organic foods, but more than anything she's a heavy hitter in the "eat real food" movement.  Her cookbook is amazing {no pictures, but don't let that be the reason you don't try her recipes.  They're easy and with ingredients you have heard of}  The name of the book title will hopefully tip you off on the difficulty level of her recipes. 

You will need:

4 large ripe peaches

5 Tablespoons Apricot Jam {or any flavor of your favorite jam, as long as it goes well with peaches}

2 Tablespoons Honey

1 cup water {I like to do 1/2 c water, 1/2 c white wine as a variation}

1 Tablespoon Lemon Zest

2 Teaspoons lemon juice

Brown sugar as needed

Ready for the easy part??

Whisk the jam, honey, water, & lemon zest and juice in a small bowl.  I have mint growing in my yard so I like to add a couple sprigs for a little extra flavor.

Cut the peaches in half and pull out the pit.  Place them flesh side up in a baking dish and pour the sauce over it, making sure the tops of the peaches are well coated with the sauce.  Sprinkle the tops of the peaches with a little bit of brown sugar.

Bake at 400 degrees until you can easily slide a knife into the peach.  The final cooking time will vary depending on how ripe the peach is.  {about 20-40 minutes.  20 minutes for ripe and ready to eat.....up to 40 minutes if its still hard}  Baste the sauce over the peaches a couple times while its cooking. 

You can eat this as is....or you can add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream on top.  If you want to do whipped cream, please note..... cool whip or that other stuff that you squirt out of a can.... IS NOT WHIPPED CREAM! Seriously, making your own is super easy.  You just use manufacturing cream, or whipping cream, or heavy cream {or whatever your grocery store calls it these days}.  They're all pretty much the same thing.  Whipping cream vs. Heavy cream.... slightly different fat content, but not by enough to impact its whipping abilities.  So buy whatever is cheaper.  

Pour about 1/4-1/2 cup of cream into a bowl and add a couple teaspoons of vanilla and enough powdered sugar to slightly sweeten it. {do this to taste....and taste it before you whip it}  Also, a pantry necessity is a good vanilla. Buy either pure vanilla or vanilla bean paste {like this one...you can buy it at Sur la table or Williams Sonoma. Its about $10-11 but super worth it.  Makes things look and taste like you used fresh vanilla bean pods}  Vanilla extract is mostly alcohol and doesn't have a very good flavor.

Just whip everything together until the cream forms stiff peaks on the whisk.

Don't whisk it past this point otherwise it will first get super grainy then eventually you'll end up with butter.

To serve, place a peach half in a bowl {or do a whole peach if you really really love this} and spoon some of the hot sauce over the peach and top with either ice cream or whipped cream.