Recipe: Nectarine Brown Butter Buckle

Deb from Smitten Kitchen has done it again- this recipe for Nectarine Brown Butter Buckle is outstanding!

Here are the ingredients:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, plus additional for greasing pan
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of allspice (I used more than pinch, plus cinnamon)
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2/3 cup whole milk or buttermilk
1 1/2 pounds nectarines, halved, pitted and cut into 1/2-inch thick wedges (about 4 cups)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Streusel
Reserved butter from cake (above)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt

First, brown the butter. Um, I *love* browned butter. Love it. Has anyone ever been to the Old Spaghetti Factory and gotten the pasta with mizithra cheese and brown butter? Best. thing. ever.

You have to make sure to do it right though. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Wait until it melts, then foams, then eventually (just when you were about to give up hope) it will start to turn brown. You should start paying careful attention and stirring frequently as soon as the foamy stage starts, cuz that butter will go from lovely golden brown (with little brown bits at the bottom that you should make sure to scrape up) to black and burnt in a flash if you aren't careful. Set aside and cool.

Next, preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray with cooking spray a 10" round pie/cake pan. (you can use parchment paper on the bottom coated with butter if you want to be really careful).

To make the cake, whisk flour, baking powder, salt and allspice in medium bowl to blend. In a large bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup cooled browned butter (set aside remaining 1/4 cup for topping), sugar and then eggs, one at a time. Stir in milk. Stir dry ingredients into this wet mixture; mix until just combined and spread batter in prepared pan.

Here's what it looks like at this stage:

It's a good thing I didn't just eat all the batter of the pan right then!

Now toss the nectarine slices with the lemon juice, and layer on top of your batter. Mmm! It's almost starting to look healthy....

To make the streusel, stir remaining brown butter, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt together until large crumbs form. Sprinkle the crumbs over the nectarines, like so:

Bake until top is golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs, about 40 to 45 minutes (or in my oven, nearly an hour). Be careful when evaluating how done it is- the moistness from the nectarines can confuse things, according to Deb. But let's be honest- if it's not totally cooked, it will still be delicious, especially if you eat it right away (which you were going to do anyway, right?).

Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before serving. And leftovers are quite delicious as well. The browned butter flavor is subtle in the cake but I thought it was quite evident in the topping- especially if you make sure that butter is good and browned.

Seriously, make this before nectarines are gone for the season! (I hope I'm not too late!)