Gluten Free Peaches and Cream Cupcakes

Fruit trees are simply the best. Food, on trees! Easily accessible (usually), and bursting with ripe globes of peach or plum or cherry in the summer. Of course there are so many other arboreal foods, but I’m talking about temperate orchards of stone fruit or apples or pears, the kind with literal low-hanging fruit and that pepper the valleys of southern Oregon each summer. Picking peaches in late July or early August was like a holiday for us kids. I remember what I think was the first year we brought home our haul – dusty from the dry, hot orchard haze, covered in a fine peach fuzz ourselves, and warm with bellies full of the peaches we snuck while filling orange 5-gallon buckets with fruit. We had driven out to Sugar Plum Acres, a big old U-pick orchard about twenty minutes from our tiny town, slathered with sunblock and ready for the grandest Easter egg hunt we could ever imagine. We spent over an hour running through rows of drooping peach trees, heavy with the burden of their ripe produce, peaches like so many smoky-sun pearls adorning these lop-sided crowns of summer. The action of placing a peach in our buckets was the definition of gentle – not wanting to dent the fragile and miraculous orbs. And then the most vivid memory of the day – sitting on the concrete front step at dusk back in Eagle Point while my mom and neighbor toiled away in the kitchen, elbow deep in soup pots full of peaches and canning jars – preparing the yellow-orange globes for winter shelves. I had snuck one last peach (I’d already eaten my weight in fruit as a six year old but one more wouldn’t hurt) and bit into it and swooned – impossibly sweet and like a pillow of a summer evening.

Years later, I would read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the long and winding poem by T. S. Elliot, in my sophomore English class, and while I missed the meanings he hid in the nooks and crannies of each line, I distinctly remember loving the note, “Do I dare to eat a peach?” It was a secondary thought in one of the last stanzas but it tossed me back into the hot July evening, sitting on the porch, biting into the final forbidden peach of the day. And, much like the joke “don’t think about an elephant” (which, ultimately, propels you into a detailed visualization of wrinkled grey skin and big ears), I now silently repeat Eliot’s line every time I dare to eat a peach.

I’ve missed a few summers of peach picking now that I’m out of university and living in San Francisco, and certainly this year while we’re all stuck in a bit of lock down, but hopefully next summer I can join the family back up in Oregon and we can all dare to eat far-too-many peaches while standing on step ladders reaching into the burgeoning lattice of peaches and branches. For now, I’ll stick with store-bought stone fruit and make as many peachy desserts as I can. These gluten free peaches and cream cupcakes are like a mid-summer day’s dream, with warm pockets of chunks of fresh peaches and the most peach puree I could pack into each bite. If you’re also a peach fan, go ahead and make this easy peach upside down cake too, or this stone fruit crumble that’s one part fruit and five parts easy peasy. Or just looking for summer fruit treats? Try these strawberry rhubarb cupcakes or this berries and cream Swiss roll!

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Gluten Free Peaches and Cream Cupcakes

These cupcakes are full of summer peaches and topped with silky peach buttercream

Prep Time45 minutes mins

Cook Time25 minutes mins

Cooling time15 minutes mins

Course: Breakfast, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American

Diet: Gluten Free

Keyword: buttercream, cupcakes, gluten free, peach, peaches, peaches and cream, summer

Servings: 24 cupcakes

Calories: 350kcal

Author: Amelia Farber

Equipment

• Cupcake pans
• Electric hand or stand mixer

Ingredients

For the cupcakes

• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 Cup canola oil
• 3/4 Cup sour cream
• 1 Cup pureed fresh, peeled peaches instructions below (about two whole peaches)
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 Cup white sugar
• 1 1/4 Cup gluten free 1-1 flour mix with xanthan gum included (if the mix doesn't have xanthan gum, add 1 tsp of xanthann gum)
• 3/4 Cup blanched almond flour/meal
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup peeled, chopped fresh peaches instructions below (about two whole peaches)

For the buttercream:

• 2 Cups salted butter at room temperature
• 5-6 Cups powdered sugar
• 1 Cup pureed fresh, peeled peaches instructions below (about two whole peaches)
• 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

• First, preheat the oven to 350° F and line two 12-cupcake pans with paper cupcake cups. Then peel your peaches. I like to bring a big pot of water to boil and dunk the peaches into the boiling water for about 20 seconds, then remove them quickly and put in a bowl under cold running water. This will make it very easy to peel the peaches. Once peeled and pitted, puree about 4 peaches and set aside. Then, in a large bowl, whisk together 1 cup of the peach puree with the eggs, oil, sour cream, vanilla, nutmeg, and sugar. Then add in the flour, almond flour, baking soda, and baking powder, and stir to combine. Then pit the two remaining peaches and chop into 1/2 inch pieces. Add these chopped peaches to the batter and stir until combined. Then, spoon batter into your cupcake cups – each one should be about 3/4 full. Bake for 22-27 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean (do not underbake or the peaches will be gummy). Let cool completely before frosting
• While the cupcakes are cooling, make the buttercream. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together the butter and 1 cup of the powdered sugar until smooth. Add in three more cups of powdered sugar and beat until completely combined. Then add in 1/2 cup of the remaining peach puree and beat until smooth. Add in another cup of powdered sugar and then the last 1/2 cup of peach puree and beat until smooth. Add in the vanilla and beat. If the buttercream is still too soupy or thin, add more powdered sugar until it is stiff enough to pipe onto the cupcakes. Scoop the buttercream into a piping bag and pipe onto cupcakes, then serve!

Tag @sisterssansgluten on Instagram if you snap a photo of your cupcakes!

Food photography and styling by Amelia Farber