Peachy Keen, Jelly Bean
Movin' to the country, gonna eat me a lot of peaches.
Whenever you accidentally read the news and are thrown deep into the void, remember that you were lucky enough to be born with tastebuds on a planet that has peaches and climb your hungry ass out! There’s far too much summer produce left to succumb to despair quite yet. Despair is for November, everybody knows that.
Brown Butter Peach Lemon Bars
These (almost) won my work’s bake-off. They lost (narrowly) to sourdough chocolate chip cookies (understandable).
These are custardy and delightfully creamy, but still sturdy enough to withstand the drive to the function, thanks to the nutty, almost savory crust. For those of you who love a salty/sweet pairing, get ready to rumble.
Makes two 8x8 baking dishes, or about 24 bars. 12 for your friends, and 12 to remind your enemies that you’re fantastic, vibrant, and won’t be stopped.
Ingredients
The Crustâ„¢
1.5 c. (3 sticks) salted butter
3/4 c. sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3 c. + 1 tbsp AP flour
The Fillingâ„¢
2 peaches
1.5 c. lemon juice
1-2 tbsp lemon zest
3 c. sugar (I never claimed this was healthy, okay)
1/2 c. AP flour
Smidge (1 tsp) of vanilla extract
9 eggs
(Optional) Powdered sugar for dusting
Process
The Crust
Preheat your oven to 350.
In a saucepan or a deep frying pan, melt your 3 sticks of butter on medium. Stir frequently- the butter will foam up, then the foam will go away and leave you with a pot of beautifully browned butter (takes 6-9 minutes). Take off heat.
Let your butter cool a bit (5 minutes). Do NOT pour directly into a metal bowl, and then grab the metal bowl. Just don’t.
While the butter is doing its own thing and aligning its chakras (or whatever), combine sugar, flour, and vanilla. Stir in the melted butter until fully combined.
Prepare two 8x8 baking dishes with parchment paper so your bars don’t stick.
Press your shortbread into the baking dishes, taking care to get crust in the edges.
Pop in the oven for 18-22 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when the edges are lightly browned.
The Filling
While your crust is baking, start on the filling.
Boil a small saucepan of water. Cut an X into the bottom of your two peaches. Dunk the peaches in the water for 20-30 seconds, and immediately dunk in a bowl of ice water. Peel your peaches and remove the pit.
Using a blender or immersion blender, puree peaches until very smooth.
Zest a lemon or two. No need to measure- listen to your heart. Lemon zest will add a bright, fruity flavor to complement the tartness.
Juice your lemons- if they’re large, you’ll need 5-6. If they’re wimpy, you’ll need more.
Combine the flour, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Once combined, add the peach puree and lemon juice. Mix until just combined. You don’t want to whip too much air into your eggs.
Pour filling onto the crust, and turn the heat down to 325.
Bake for 22-25 minutes, until set in the middle.
Let cool on the counter for 1-2 hours, and then put in the fridge to chill, for at least 1 hour. When you’re ready to serve, dust with powdered sugar and ENJOY!
Swaps
This is baking, so there are limited swaps you can make here. Here are some I’m aware of.
Don’t have parchment paper?
Butter or nonstick spray is fine- I like parchment paper so I can lift the whole pan out in one swoop, and then cut on a cutting board. If you prefer to claw your bars out of the pan like a feral child, hell yeah, do that instead.
Don’t feel like peeling your peaches?
That’s fine, just puree a little longer. I like the silky texture that the peel-less peaches offer, but if you don’t care, do your thang.
No peaches?
You could use frozen peaches, or most other fruits that aren’t too watery. I don’t think this could work with melon, but berries or other stone fruits would be bangin’. Imagine a raspberry lemonade bar!
No lemons?
You thought I was going to say that you’re done for, right? WRONG!
You could do limes, oranges, blood oranges, or probably these interesting guys.
Make it GF?
After copious research, I’ve found a couple of solutions. The easiest and most commonly recommended one is using Bob Red Mill’s 1:1 GF flour. Maybe Bob has a great publicist, but the top-rated GF lemon bar recipes use this.
While doing some digging, I found this recipe for a custom GF flour blend that has rave reviews. Reviewers note that it has a really pleasant chew when used for the shortbread.
Make it vegan?
Sub vegan butter for the crust. For the filling, instead of eggs to thicken the lemon juice, use full-fat coconut milk, cornstarch, and a tiny pinch of turmeric for color, as per Nora Cooks. She advises heating up the lemon juice, sugar, coconut, cornstarch, and turmeric to dissolve the cornstarch and stir on medium until thickened to the desired consistency.
Make it vegetarian?
You guys aren’t putting meat in your lemon bars, right? Right???
Peaches N’ Boursin
This one’s so easy, a Montessori baby with decent knife skills, a super drunk person with supervision, or someone straight out of minor surgery could do it. Have someone else cut the bread for you if you’re under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, and if it was wisdom tooth extraction, consult with your oral surgeon before enjoying.
Makes 4 snack-sized servings. Double for serious snackers or if you’re a maniac and are eating this for dinner.
Ingredients
2 large peaches
1 package herb and garlic Boursin
1 loaf of crusty bread or crackers
Handful of basil leaves
Drizzle of olive oil
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar
Process
Bring your Boursin to room temperature- let sit for 30 minutes to an hour before your serve time.
While your cheese is getting its warm-up in, cut your bread into slices, brush a bit of olive oil on each slice, and toast under the broiler for 2-3 minutes, unless your broiler sucks, then do longer.
If you’re broiler shy, you can also cut the slices thinner and use a toaster. Yes, I didn’t know what broil meant until very late into young adulthood, and did this many times.
Or, just do what I did this time around and use crackers. Easy peasy.
Slice your peaches and rinse your basil.
Once the cheese is room temp, the bread, toasted, drizzle a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the peaches. Ooh lala!
Add salt and pepper to taste.
For serving, let guests put a lil cheese on bread, and add a peach slice and basil leaf on top.
Swaps
No fresh peaches?
Although peaches come from a can, canned peaches are a bit too syrupy-sweet for this combination.
If I were going to use canned peaches, I’d finely chop them and sauté in a teeny bit of butter or olive oil with some salt, pepper, and something spicy. Fresh peppers if I had them, dried chili flakes or chili oil if not. Use as a spicy peach preserve.
Alternatively, most other stone fruits would work just fine. Nectarines, apricots, plums, etc.
Make it vegan?
Boursin now makes a vegan version- yaaaaaas. If your grocery stores don’t have this, you can make your own. Use vegan cream cheese and butter, with a ratio of 2:1 cream cheese to butter. Let soften, and add dried herbs like dill, parsley, chives, and thyme. Throw in a bit of finely minced garlic and salt and pepper, and let the flavors groove in the fridge a bit before eating. YUM!
Make it gluten-free?
The bread is just a vehicle for peaches and cheese- you could forgo that vehicle completely, or use gluten-free crackers, like rice crackers or almond flour crackers. No GF crackers? This recipe for GF Ritz crackers was one of the longest lasting, most highly recommended I found online. Go crazy.
Bulk it up?
You could turn this into a crazy sandwich. For a veg version, use tofurkey, seitan slices, or salt-cured beet prosciutto.
If you like meat, good ol deli turkey or chicken would take this over the top.
Make it worse?
You can’t, sorry.
If you missed it, check out this herb-y, bright peach cucumber salad from a few weeks ago.
