The following recipe can be prepared anywhere, no matter what the altitude. This recipe is available now in my newest cookbook: Sharing Mountain Recipes/The Muffin Lady's Everyday Favorites

This is my favorite to delve into right out of the oven. Rarely is there ever a time, when I bake a cake that I do not allow it to cool before tasting. But when I make this luscious cake, I cannot resist. These uncontrollable moments when my taste buds have much less patience than my attitude and the fork develops a mind of its own are what I call the "Force of Enticement". This Force takes over and I loose all control and it just appears as if a driving force unbeknown to me, just pushes that fork right into this cake, takes out a small amount and delivers it into my mouth. So if you ever feel this powerful Force take over, do not hesitate, but first blow on the mass on the fork, cooling it slightly avoiding any tongue burning prior to delivering this small amount of pleasure to your awaiting senses.

Preheat the oven to 350° F

Streusel:
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 (1/2 stick) cup butter
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Mix and set aside in a separate bowl.

Cake:
8 cups (8-10 peaches) sliced and skinned fresh peaches or use 4 cans light peaches, drained (To skin fresh peaches, soak them in hot water for 10-15 minutes and immediately peel the skin off.)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

Directions:
1. Cream together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla.
2. Add flour and baking powder to the butter mixture, alternately with the milk. Mix the batter thoroughly.
3. Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
4. Spread a little less than half of the batter onto bottom of the prepared pan. You will use every bit of the batter, so when spreading batter into the pan and again on top of peaches, have a bowl of about 1 cup of flour available and a rubber spatula. Constantly repeat dipping the back of the spatula into flour to help to spread the batter. (It will seem like there is not enough batter, but there really is enough.) 5. Sprinkle half the streusel all over the batter, and then cover the streusel with half the peaches, completely covering the bottom half of batter.
6. Gently spread the second half of the batter over the peaches.
7. Place the remaining peaches on top of the batter, and sprinkle the remaining streusel over the peaches.
8. Bake 40-50 minutes or until inserted knife comes out clean.

Variation:
*Plums fresh or canned can be substituted for the peaches.

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This recipe is from Randi's latest book:

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