See? I told you so! Here we are with summer still a warm memory, and already the fresh peaches are almost $5.00 a pound.

Frozen peaches are a better alternative than canned, because to my palate the canning process alters something fundamentally in the taste of the peaches. Don't get me wrong: canned peaches are good for some things like Curry Coronation Couscous Salad (remind me to give you the recipe for that sometime), but when you want that fresh peach taste sans the fresh peaches, frozen is the only way to go.

This week-end a cake was baked for Nini's birthday: a lovely bundt cake whose recipe will soon follow. But it is not the kind of cake that requires icing - in fact, it is the kind of cake that should not be iced.

In honor of the festive occasion we did however top individual slices with whipped cream and peaches.

To prepare the pieces, the frozen wedges were places on a plate and sprinkled (lightly - or not so lightly if you prefer) with sugar. As they defrosted and macerated at the same time, a lovely light syrup formed on the plate. The wedges were then sliced into half-inch slices, and the syrup was drizzled directly onto the naked cake slices.

We whipped a cup of cream with two tablespoons of confectioners sugar and an eighth of a teaspoon of orange essence; when forming stiff peaks, we folded in some orange zest. (The cake itself had lots of orange zest and a little orange essence. The flavors go remarkably well with the fresh peaches)

Then we piped whimsical dollops of cream onto the cake after dotting it with the peaches. I can tell you that the cake didn't last very long, and that Angel Face ended up with cream on her face and crumbs on her shirt!

I am submitting this to AFAM Peaches, hosted this month by Mansi.

PS: There is a special reason why we celebrate Nini's birthday with peaches. In the southern hemisphere, October is spring time; while growing up our father used to say that peach blossoms were Nini's birthday flower, because the two huge peach trees in the backyard would be covered in blossoms when she had her birthday.

We commemorated his 25th death anniversary last month, and I think it is memories like this that keeps him alive for us.

Well, I promised I would post the recipe for the Orange Bundt Cake that played the supporting role in my AFAM Peaches entry, and the foodblogging community did not let me forget that.

One of the weekly magazines in South Africa has a column where readers send in their favorite recipes. They run it through their test kitchen, and if it works, they publish it. After they have collected a good number of these, they publish them in a volume of "champion recipes." A few years ago they selected the best from those volumes, and published "the best of the champion recipes:" Die Beste van Huisgenoot se Wenresepte, edited by Annette Human.

The basis for this recipe comes from that book, but over the years we have adapted it to our tastes. It is basically a "never-fail" recipe, rich and moist without being too dense. Its appearance is rustic - which makes it beautiful to my eyes, just like the unevenness of kadhi is part of its appeal.

If you insist you can certainly ice it, but to me that is gilding the lily. Serve it as it is, or make a simple syrup to which you add the juice of an orange and a couple of drops of orange extract to pour over it, serve it with cream or ice cream, add some fruit or some fruit syrup - the options are many.

Note: The recipe scales really well. Our bundt pan is very large, so we double the recipe. After the first 30 minutes in the oven we check, and do 15 minutes more. That usually is enough, but if not, we add five minutes at a time.