Fluffy, soft butter cake and fresh peaches are a match made in heaven. This butter cake is made using the reverse-creaming method (the dry ingredients are coated in fat before the wet ingredients are added), which makes for a supertender, melt-in-your-mouth cake. While you can use fresh or frozen peaches in this recipe, it would be best to save the juiciest in-season fruit for eating out of hand, as overly ripe fruit could make the cake soggy. Baking the medium-ripe peaches, artfully nestled in a buttery bed, brings out their natural sweetness and transforms even less-than-perfect fruit into something special.

Butter Cake With Peaches
Ingredients:
• 1 1/4 cups/283 grams butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces, plus more for the pan
• 3 cups/384 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
• 1 3/4 cups/352 grams granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup/240 grams plain whole-milk yogurt (not Greek), at room temperature
• 4 medium-ripe peaches, pitted and cut into 1/4-inch wedges

Directions:
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-by-13-inch baking pan.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Add the butter and beat with an electric mixer on medium until all the dry ingredients are coated in butter and the mixture looks like coarse sand, about 2 minutes.

Add the eggs and beat until well-combined, about 1 minute. Add the yogurt and beat on high until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Add half of the peaches and gently mix them into the batter.
Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread it out evenly. Top with the remaining peaches and sprinkle the top evenly with sugar.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 50 to 65 minutes. Transfer the pan to a rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Total time: 1 1/2 hours, serves 10-12.

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