Peach Melba Dessert

Peaches from Jeanette

My friend Jeanette, a native of Australia, gave me a bounty of beautiful peaches from the Farmer's Market for my birthday.  Since the Peach Melba dessert was named for an Australian opera singer Nellie Melba*, I decided the perfect way to use a few of these peaches was to make Peach Melba dessert.

Recipe for three desserts:

3 whole fresh peaches
vanilla ice cream
raspberries (or in my case I had on hand some raspberry seedless jam)
sliced almonds (optional)

1.  Poach peaches in simmering (not boiling)  water to soften and make removal of the skin easy.

Poach peaches in simmering (not boiling) water.

2.  Remove skin and plunge peaches in ice water to cool rapidly.

Peach halves in ice water to cool.

 3.  Prepare raspberry sauce.  I heated the raspberry seedless jam just enough to liquefy.  If you are using fresh raspberries, cook about 2 cups of raspberries in a cup of sugar.  Strain the cooked raspberries to remove the seeds and use the raspberry syrup to drizzle over the ice cream and peaches.

I used raspberry jam instead of raspberries because this is what I had on hand.

Peach halves and raspberry syrup ready.

 4. Put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a dessert dish.  Add two peach halves and drizzle with raspberry syrup.  And there you have it---Peach Melba Dessert.

Peach Melba Dessert ready to enjoy.

 *  If you are interested in reading about the history of this dessert you can check out this link.