Life Tastes Good Again: Peach Right-Side-Up Cake

When I was little my mother made a pineapple upside-down cake. She may have made more than one, but I disliked it so much that I don't really remember. I don't know why I disliked it ... lots of people LOVE Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. And I myself love fresh pineapple. I don't even mind canned pineapple ... but I will happily forego eating Pineapple Upside-Down Cake for the rest of my life. Sometime this spring, however, I saw a picture on facebook of a PEACH Upside-Down Cake. Now, THAT appealed to me. So I googled some recipes and started to play. I don't actually turn the cake upside down - we just eat it straight out of the cake pan,with vanilla ice cream, cool whip, or whipped cream - which is why I call it a Right-Side-Up Cake.

For the most part I have used bottled peaches (I have several boxes of bottled peaches in my basement that have gotten old enough that they really needed to be used in a baking project instead of being eaten straight from the bottle), but since I had fresh peaches available tonight (I LOVE having fruit trees), I used fresh ones. It's my daughter's birthday cake - she fell in love with this cake this year and requested it as her birthday cake months ago.

Peach Right-Side-Up Cake

2 1/2 c. EGF all purpose flour mix
1 tsp. xanthan gum
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. sugar
1 (3.4 oz.) pkg instant vanilla pudding mix
3/4 c. butter, softened but still cool
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 c. buttermilk (I usually combine 1 1/8 c. whole milk and 1/8 c. lemon juice and let it sit for about 5 minutes while I combine the rest of the ingredients)

3-4 cups peach slices

Caramel Sauce
1/2 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. corn syrup
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine all dry ingredients in the bowl of a mixer. Add butter. Mix on low-medium speed until the butter is in tiny pieces - the mixture should look rather like a cake mix.