This Fresh Peach Cobbler Pound Cake Loaf is a mash-up of the best peach pound cake has to offer and that classic crisp-topped hint-of-cinnamon fruity cobbler. And the best part is it's all baked into one easy to make, delicious loaf!
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Peach Pound Cake Belongs in a Loaf
Now, I'm guessing this may be an unpopular opinion if google is any indication of what people are looking for when they search "peach cobbler pound cake."
But, anytime I hear "pound cake," I immediately think of a beautiful golden loaf that weighs 10 times as much as you think it would, with a nice tight crumb, and rich, buttery flavor.
Almost all the other recipes I found for this particular mash-up use a Bundt pan. And while I like a big Bundt (...and I can not lie lol) as much as the next girl, the texture I imagine in a traditional pound just doesn't work as well in a bundt in my humble opinion.
So essentially, I decided to stick with the traditional 9" x 5" loaf pan instead of a Bundt for a couple of reasons that I think you'll find make this peach cobble pound cake recipe truly the best one out there:
- Richer cake with a proper bake: a loaf pan can handle a heavier, richer batter while still baking through all the way because it holds less total batter than a Bundt pan.
- The top stays on top: for this loaf, I'm essentially having you build a mini cobbler with peaches and streusel on top of our loaf. With the loaf pan, this beautiful crisp top stays on top of the final product. With a Bundt, you'd end up with that streusel on the bottom of your cake when you flip it over, which would ruin all the fun (and the best part of this recipe in my opinion!)
- Smaller serving size: a loaf is a much better serving size for the average household. While I love Bundts for a party and bringing a big group together, if you're looking for a weekend treat for just one family, the loaf is a much better serving size (and you can always make multiple loaves to feed a crowd at those summer cookouts!).
- Less finicky bake: because we can use a parchment sling for a loaf pan, we have a guaranteed easy release for our loaf. This helps to relive the anxiety that builds up in the moments leading up to the Bundt cake flip, when there's always a risk of half your cake getting stuck in the pan even for experienced bakers.
Ingredient Tips for Better Baking
(Pssst…if you're ready to just get baking, get all the details in the recipe card below!)
- Cinnamon: for the streusel, we're using just enough cinnamon for it to be noticeable, so it's more of a *cinnamon-kissed* streusel than a fully cinnamon streusel. I designed the recipe this way because generally cobblers are only lightly spiced, so I wanted to stay true to that flavor profile. However, if you really love cinnamon, feel free to double the cinnamon to a ½ teaspoon for your topping.
- Baking powder: while not traditionally used in a classic pound cake, I found a little bit of leavener really helped this recipe. It not only lightens up the texture of our cake which can be a little weighed down by all that juicy fruit, but also makes for a much prettier domed loaf to really show off that streusel as well.
- Vanilla extract: make sure you use a good quality vanilla extract, which really helps round out the flavor and bring everything together.
- Milk + Eggs: milk is another ingredient not found in classic pound cake which is traditionally made with eggs as the only liquid (the traditional recipe is 1 pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour). However, while we definitely want to keep the eggs in there to help with both flavor and rise, I find a little milk helps to keep the batter moist and balance out the flavor so it isn't overly eggy.
- Peaches: peaches are obviously the star of the show here. Now, I know I will get questions about frozen and canned peaches, so here are my thoughts on that. In short, this recipe is really best with fresh peaches for 2 reasons. Firstly, they are the best you can get flavor-wise and with the peaches being the star of this recipe, you want to use the best you can get. Secondly, the water content of frozen or canned peaches is less predictable, and could cause your loaf to have too much liquid and struggle to bake through fully. So please do yourself a favor and use fresh peaches. If you absolutely have to substitute (since I know peaches only have a short season), I'd use frozen peaches before canned, and add them to the recipe when still fully frozen. If you decide to use canned peaches, drain and rinse them well, and then dry them out between paper towels before adding them to the batter.
(p.s. for all the basic tips that no one ever taught you, that are super important to help you bake your best, check out my Baking 101 series!)
How to Make Peach Pound Cake from Scratch
(Pssst…if you're ready to just get baking, get all the details in the recipe card below!)
- Stir together the dry streusel ingredients in a small bowl.
- Add melted butter and mix until big crumbs form. Set aside.
- Slice and dice the peaches.
- Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
- Add in the eggs, one by one.
- Add in all the flour until about 80% mixed.
- Mix in the milk on low speed just until combined.
- Fold in diced peaches by hand.
- Transfer batter to the prepared pan.
- Add the peach slices and press them into the batter.
- Top with crumbled streusel.
- Bake for 60-70 minutes until golden brown and fully set in the middle.
- Cool fully, dust with powdered sugar if you like, then slice, share and enjoy!
And check out the full RECIPE WEB STORY for a click-through tutorial!
Cream Cheese Peach Pound Cake
If you'd like to make a cream cheese peach pound cake variation of this loaf, you can substitute some cream cheese in place of the butter.
To do this use 6 tablespoons soft butter (85g), and 4 tablespoons of softened full-fat cream cheese (57g). Proceed with the recipe exactly as written, just add the cream cheese in with the butter on the first step.
To do this use 6 tablespoons soft butter
Test Kitchen Tips for Sweet Success
- Mix it on low: keep your mixer medium-low or low for all the steps after creaming the butter to maintain a tight crumb and rich texture. This makes sure you also don't beat the batter too much which can lead to a tough and/or collapsed final product.
- Use fresh peaches: I HIGHLY recommend using fresh instead of canned or frozen peaches for this recipe, both for the best flavor and the more predictable baking dynamics (see "Ingredients" above or "FAQs" below for more on this!).
- Make a parchment sling: I know it's temping to skip the parchment sling, but it really is worth it. It takes less than 2 minutes to put together and guarantees a clean release and beautiful loaf. It also helps the loaf from over-browning be creating a barrier between the pan and the batter which is extra-important when we have a really long bake time like we do for this recipe.
- Allow loaf to fully cool before slicing: this loaf's crispy streusel top covering a soft and rich cake crumb presents a liiiiiittle bit of a problem for the baker - it's a little hard to slice. I must admit, even knowing this, I still kept the recipe as is because that streusel top (which almost creates a cage over the soft and tender cake below as it settles and cools) is just too good to pass up. To help with this, I've included some tips in the recipe card below on how to make slicing easier. The #1 tip I can give you is to make sure your loaf is completely cooled so the cake is fully set before slicing.
More Tips + FAQs
How do you store leftover pound cake? Can you freeze pound cake?
This cake can be stored well-wrapped in plastic wrap or in an air-tight container in the fridge for about 4-5 days. Because of the high water content of our fruit, it's best to keep this cake in the fridge, but you can definitely give your slice a quick 10-15 second hit in the microwave to warm it up when you're ready to enjoy it.
You can freeze it fully baked for up to a month, but I find it’s best enjoyed fresh.
Do you need to peel the peaches?
Nope! The peaches cook for so long in this loaf, you won't notice the texture of the skin at all, and it'll give your loaf some pretty red pops of color when you slice it!
Can I use frozen or canned peaches?
As mentioned in the Ingredients section above, peaches are the star of the show here.
Because of that, this recipe is really best with fresh peaches for 2 reasons:
1. They are the best you can get flavor-wise and with the peaches being the star of this recipe, you want to use the best you can get.
2. The water content of frozen or canned peaches is less predictable, and could cause your loaf to have too much liquid and struggle to bake through fully.
So please do yourself a favor and use fresh peaches. If you have to substitute, I'd use frozen peaches before canned, and add them to the recipe when still fully frozen.
Why is pound cake called pound cake?
Great question! Traditionally, pound cake was made with a pound of four ingredients: a pound of butter (4 sticks), a pound of sugar (2 ¼ cups), a pound of eggs (9 large eggs), and a pound of flour (3 ¼ cups).
Now, you'll see my recipe is definitely not a direct representation of those traditional ratios, but it maintains that classically dense crumb, enriched with a whole lot of fat and sugar, and is baked in a loaf pan.
Hence pound cake is still the best name for this bright and citrusy take on the classic recipe. (Read more in this pound cake article!).
How do you make pound cake moist?
I find the secret to a moist pound cake is adding an extra ingredient that excels at adding moisture to any cake crumb.
Ingredients like yogurt, sour cream, and cream cheese can be very good at this. But since we already have a pretty heavy batter, I decided to stick with classic milk here.
The milk will bring a little extra moisture compared to the traditional egg-only recipes, and it also helps to lighten this batter up instead of weighing it down as a thicker alternative such as sour cream would.
Other Cake + Fruity Recipes You'll Love
Craving more delicious treats? Here are a few of my other favorite cake and fruit-filled recipes you'll love:
⭐ If you gave this recipe a try please give it a ⭐ rating and tag me on Instagram @mint.and.mallow.kitchen so I can see what you're baking up! ⭐
📖 Full Recipe
Fresh Peach Cobbler Pound Cake
Ingredients
FOR THE STREUSEL:
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted)
FOR THE POUND CAKE:
- 2 ripe peaches (see below for prep notes)
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 10 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter (softened)
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- ⅓ cup milk
- Powdered sugar, for decoration (optional)
Instructions
TO MAKE THE STREUSEL:
- Prep and preheat: lightly grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan, line it with a parchment sling, then again lightly grease the parchment paper as well. Preheat oven to 350°F, and place your baking rack one rung below middle in the oven.
- Stir together streusel dries: use a fork to stir together the streusel's sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl.
- Mix in butter: add melted butter to dries and use a fork to blend until crumbs form and there are no more dry patches in the mixture. Set aside.
TO MAKE THE CAKE:
- Slice peaches: cut one peach into thin ¼”-½” slices (you’ll need 12+ slices total). Cut the other peach into ½” slices and then dice those slices into small ½” pieces (you’ll need 1 cup total, or about 130g). Set aside.
- Mix dries: combine flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl until well-blended and set aside.
- Cream butter, sugar and vanilla: add butter, sugar, and vanilla extract to a large mixing bowl and cream with a hand or stand mixer until very smooth and fluffy (about 1 minute on medium-high speed).
- Add eggs: add in the eggs one by one, and beat briefly on medium-low after each addition until well combined.
- Mix in dries, then milk: add the dry ingredient blend and combine on low speed just until the mixture is about 80% mixed (keep speed nice and low here as over-mixing will toughen your cake!). Scrape the bowl, pour in the milk, then finish mixing on low until batter is smooth and fully combined.
- Add in the diced peaches: add 1 cup of the small diced peaches (not the slices) into the batter and mix them in by hand until evenly distributed.
- Transfer to pan: transfer batter into prepared pan and smooth to level the top.
- Add peach slices: Press in 9-12 peach slices on a diagonal in pairs or trios going down the pan and press them in until they’re just above the batter (see photos in post for an example!).*1
- Top with streusel: sprinkle the streusel in small and large clumps over the top of the peach slices to evenly cover the surface of your loaf.*2
- Bake loaf: bake for 60-70 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until the surface streusel is golden brown, a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, and the batter in the center of the top of the loaf split springs back when gently pressed (a thermometer inserted into the center of the cake should read 190°F+ when the loaf is fully baked).
- Cool loaf: allow loaf to cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes in the pan, then loosen the ends if necessary and use the parchment sling to carefully remove the loaf from the pan. Allow it to continue cooling fully to room temperature (the loaf will settle and the dome may drop a bit while cooling which is totally normal).
- Slice, share and enjoy! Once cool, dust with powdered sugar if you like, slice using a serrated knife, then share this fruity pound cake mash-up with everyone around to put them all in a peachy keen-mood!*3
Test Kitchen Tips
- *1The size of your peaches: how many peach slices you can fit on top of your loaf will depend on the size of your peaches. If you have smaller peaches, just add a fourth row. You may have some slices and some diced pieces left that aren’t used, again depending on the size of your fruit, which can just be enjoyed as a snack for the baker!
- *2Streuselization: depending on how much your streusel has cooled, it may be easier or harder to keep it in clumps instead of dust. To make the clumps, squeeze a big chunk of streusel together in your hand, then gently break up that chunk over top of the pan to sprinkle smaller and larger clumps evenly over the surface of the batter.
- *3Slicing tips: I won’t lie - this loaf can be a bit tricky to slice up because the streusel on top is hard to cut through and can crush the cake below if you’re not careful. That said, the streusel really takes this loaf to the next level so I promise it’s worth the trouble! For the best results slicing, I recommend:
- Allowing the loaf to cool completely so the cake is fully set.
- Using a serrated knife and a sawing motion to break through the streusel.
- Not trying to make the slices too skinny as the wider slices will hold together better.
- Cream Cheese Peach Pound Cake: if you'd like to make a cream cheese peach pound cake variation of this loaf, you can substitute some cream cheese in place of the butter. To do this use 6 tablespoons soft butter (85g), and 4 tablespoons of softened full-fat cream cheese (57g). Proceed with the recipe exactly as written, just add the cream cheese in with the butter on the first step.
- Can I use frozen or canned peaches? This recipe is really best with fresh peaches for 2 reasons. Firstly, they are the best you can get flavor-wise and with the peaches being the star of this recipe, you want to use the best you can get. Secondly, the water content of frozen or canned peaches is less predictable, and could cause your loaf to have too much liquid and struggle to bake. If you have to substitute, I'd use frozen peaches before canned, and add them to the recipe when still fully frozen. If you decide to use canned peaches since I know sometimes that's all you can find, drain and rinse them well, and then dry them out between paper towels before adding them to the batter.
- Loaf over-browning? I haven’t found this to be an issue with this recipe if you bake it in the middle of the oven. But, if your loaf is getting too brown during the bake, you can loosely tent it with aluminum foil while it finishes baking, but you don't typically need to do that with this recipe (it's meant to be fully golden brown on top).
- Storage and freezing: this cake can be stored well-wrapped in plastic wrap or in an air-tight container in the fridge for about 4-5 days. Because of the high water content of our fruit, it's best to keep this cake in the fridge, but you can definitely give it a quick 10-15 second hit in the microwave to warm it up wen your ready to enjoy it! You can freeze it fully baked for up to a month, but I find it’s best enjoyed fresh.
Uzma Asif Khan says
I want to try this recipe, instead of butter may I use olive oil.
Jocelyn at M+M says
Thanks so much for reaching out, Uzma! The chemical interactions of olive oil with the other ingredients will be different than butter, and since I haven't tested that substitution, I can't say if it will work, but you're welcome to experiment if you like! Also, there is a good deal of butter in this recipe so know that if you do use olive oil in it's place, the flavor will be quite strong and will definitely change the taste of the loaf, so it's again up to you if you'd like to experiment here as well. Hope that helps and happy baking!