Sweet Grilled Peaches n' Cream Cheese Toast

Wait.

Didn’t yesterday’s recipe include fruit + cream cheese?  Well, so does today’s. 

I often forget about the deliciousness that is cream cheese until I find it lurking in the back of the fridge behind 3 jars of salsa, 4 jars of nut butter, pickles, ketchup, and the like.  Those little tubs are so good at hiding! 

When I do come across cream cheese it’s in 1 of 3 states:

1. opened—most likely months ago—and moldy
2. unopened, expired, and moldy
3. unopened, expired, but miraculously not moldy

I grew up adoring the combination of rye toast, cream cheese, and black raspberry jam.  Just thinking about the partially melted but super creamy texture when spread on a piece of crispy toast makes me weak. 

As soon as you taste this you will understand why I couldn’t wait even one day longer to share. 

Now don’t jump to conclusions thinking all I did was spread cream cheese on toast then throw a grilled peach on top.  While that would be excellent in itself, you know there had to be something else involved.

Like a marinade for the peaches.

And a crunchy, toasted topping.

It can serve as a fancy but simple breakfast, a fun appetizer, or even dessert.

This recipe has no rules.

Except that you should most definitely make extra. 

Print this!

Sweet Grilled Peaches n’ Cream Cheese Toast 

gluten-free // yields 6-8 slices of toast

• 6 pieces of gluten-free bread*
• 2-3 large peaches, slightly soft to the touch
• 3 tablespoons raw honey
• 1.5 tablespoons extra virgin unrefined coconut oil, melted
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut
• cream cheese
• oil to grease the bread

1. Preheat your grill to about 400 degrees, med-high.
2. Whisk together the honey, melted oil, vinegar, and salt until well combined.
3. Slice the peaches into rounds that are about 1/4” thick.  I like to cut a thin “heel” piece off first then cut the slices.
4. Coat the slices in the wet mixture on both sides and place on a plate.
5. Very lightly grease your bread with oil.
6. Heat a dry pan over med-low and toast your pecans stirring every minute until lightly toasted then empty into a bowl.
7. Toast the coconut the same way then remove from the pan.  It will burn quickly.
8. Grease your grill grates then place the peaches and bread on the grill leaving enough room to flip.
9. Grill the bread for about 1-2 minutes per side until lightly toasted, and grill peaches for about 2-4 minutes per side until nicely charred.
10. Whip/mash your cream cheese with a fork to soften then spread a thick layer on each slice of toast.
11. Place a peach round on top and sprinkle with toasted pecans + coconut.
12. Or, let the toast cool and chill the peaches.  Once cooled, you can assemble in the same way and serve cold.

notes:  If using gluten free bread go for a thick bread like millet or brown rice bread.  If using gluten bread I recommend using a very sturdy bread, not a soft sandwich bread.  If your peaches are too ripe, they will have a hard time being flipped on the grill.  You want to use a firm peach that has just a little give to it.

Ashley

strawberry lavender doughnuts with cream cheese frosting

These doughnuts were actually made on Sunday and meant to be blogged about on Monday.  I took photos and taste tested but wasn’t 100% happy with them.  The lavender flavor was too strong and the strawberry didn’t come through enough.  The frosting was also slightly runny because I tried to whip the strawberries into it.  Not recommended.

I’ve had a small handful of dried lavender on my windowsill for the past few weeks.  I picked it up at the farmers market for a whopping $1.  Actually, that is probably overpriced considering lavender grows like weeds here and is in almost every single yard you walk past.

Point of this story?  Well, there barely is one.  Basically, the first go around of this recipe was a drippy frosting, fragrant fail.  Also, I took a handful of lovely dried lavender photos on Sunday and wiped my card clean before taking today’s photos.  I needed those photos for this post.  Photographing already ground lavender looked like a purple-tinted pile of dirt.  It just wasn’t doing it for me.

But I couldn’t show you these doughnuts without a photograph of lavender. So what did I do?  Borroweda few small stems from the neighbors while walking the dogs.

The bushes are literally 5 feet in diameter.  I don’t think anyone is going to notice.

And, on the bonus side these are much prettier photos than the dried lavender shots!

Now that my pointless story is over how about some doughnuts? 

How about a little cream cheese frosting sweetened with honey and powdered sucanat?

How about adding strawberries on top of the frosting instead of mixing them into it?

I’m thinking yes, and I hope you are too.

Print this!

Strawberry Lavender Doughnuts with Cream Cheese Frosting 

gluten-free // yields 8 doughnuts

• 1/2 cup gluten free oat flour
• 1/2 cup sweet rice flour
• 6 tablespoons pure cane sugar or sucanat
• 7 tablespoons strawberry puree [see below]
• 6 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons almond meal
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 2.5 teaspoons grounddried lavender buds
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder*
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8-10 strawberries for topping

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Grease your doughnut pan with melted butter, melted coconut oil, or cooking spray. 
2. In a large bowl mix together all of your dry ingredients.
3. In a medium bowl whisk together all of your wet ingredients until smooth.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir with a large wooden spoon until just combined.  Avoid over-stirring.
5. Carefully spoon the mixture into the doughnut pan molds about 1/8” from the top.
6. Bake for 18 – 24min until golden brown and springy to the touch.  If you toothpick test you want it to be moist, not gooey or dry.
7. Let the doughnuts cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then slide a small spatula around the edges to loosen.
8. Turn the doughnuts out onto a cooling rack, let completely cool, and then frost the doughnuts.
9. Cut the stem off of the 8-10 strawberries and place them on a cutting board flat side down.  Slice thinly [about 8 slices] and then slice once down the center in the opposite direction to halve the slices.
10. Place the halves in an overlapping pattern on top of the frosting.  Best if served immediately but can be stored—covered—in the fridge for 1 day.

notes: Using a Wilton doughnut pan this recipe yields 8 doughnuts.  *For altitude around 5,000 feet set your oven to 370 degrees and decrease the baking powder to 3/4 tsp.  Make sure your dried lavender buds are ground.  You can finely chop them or use a food processor or coffee grinder [just beware the scent may linger].

Strawberry Puree[yields ~ 1/2 cup]

• 1.5 cups strawberries
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1tsp tapioca starch

1. Place the cleaned + stemmed strawberries into a pot over medium heat with the honey and tapioca starch.
2. Stir until the mixture comes to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer [uncovered] for 10 minutes or until thickened and strawberries are breaking apart.
3. Empty mixture into a blender, puree, then let cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting [yields 1 cup]

• 3/4 cup cream cheese
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup powdered sucanat or powdered sugar
• 2 Tbsp honey

1. Beat the cream cheese and butter together until fluffy and smooth.
2. Beat in the honey and powdered sucanat until just smooth.
3. Refrigerate for 15-20min while the doughnuts are baking and cooling.
4. If you want a sweeter or stiffer frosting add more powdered sucanat.

A great farewell to strawberry season. 

Ashley