Easy Southern Fresh Peach Bread

Easy Southern Fresh Peach Bread is a simple, old fashioned, quick bread recipe loaded with bits of fresh juicy peaches and buttery pecans. It stays moist for days and is packed with flavor!  

A surprise ingredient, sour cream, keeps this bread moist, and it’s perfect right out of the oven, or toasted for breakfast, brunch, or even a snack.

This peach bread, like all quick bread recipes, doesn’t require any yeast, is quick and easy to make, and only takes one bowl. You don’t even have to pull out your electric mixer because everything can be mixed by hand. 

Three ways to tell when a peach is ripe:

This recipe calls for ripe or slightly overripe peaches. Remember, peaches are extremely perishable, so handle them with care and plan to eat them or use them within a day or so of purchasing.

1. Smell – as peaches ripen, their aroma becomes more potent, and a ripe peach will have a heavenly scent. No smell means they are not ripe and will be tasteless. 
2. Feel – ripe peaches should feel heavy for their size. You should be able to feel them give just a little when you gently squeeze them, but not so much that they feel mushy.  If the fruit is firm, it probably needs a day to ripen. Avoid fruit that is rock hard.
3. Color – a ripe peach is a beautiful thing with a lovely vibrant reddish blush and soft velvety skin. Avoid peaches that are green around the stem; they were probably picked too soon and will never ripen properly.

If your peaches aren’t quite ripe enough, let them sit at room temperature, on their side, not touching, in a single layer, on your counter for a day or so. If they ripen before you are ready to use them, you can store the fruit in the fridge for a few days. 

If your fruit is too hard, you can hurry the ripening process by placing them in a brown paper bag with a banana or apple for a day or so. If they are bruised, you can still salvage them, just cut away the damaged part.

Clingstone vs. freestone:

This is an easy one. As the names suggest, the difference between freestone peaches and clingstone is how easy it is to separate the flesh from the pit. When you slice a freestone peach, the flesh easily pulls away from the pit. On the other hand, with a clingstone, you have to cut the flesh away from the pit with a knife. 

How to easily peel peaches:

If your peaches are firm, it’s easy to peel them with a Y-shaped vegetable peeler or a small paring knife. If they are soft, the easiest way to peel them is to blanch them in boiling water first. Here are the steps, and I have also covered this in my video. 

1. To blanch them, place a large pot with enough water to cover the peaches on the stove over high heat.
2. While the water is coming to a boil, cut a shallow X in the bottom of each peach.
3. When the water is boiling, gently drop the peaches in and let them boil for 20-30 seconds or until their skin starts to split.
4. Immediately remove them from the water with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl of water and ice. You should then be able to easily slip the skin off with your fingers. 

What you will need to make this recipe:

You will need fresh peaches, granulated sugar, all-purpose flour, vegetable oil, eggs, sour cream, vanilla, baking soda, kosher salt, and pecans.

You will also need a no-stick baking spray with flour, a 9×5 inch loaf pan, and a wire cooling rack. 

How to make this recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Peel and finely chop the peaches. I also like to use a potato masher to mash them up a bit too. Don’t mash too much because you still want the mixture to be chunky. 

Use a non-stick baking spray with flour to grease the bottom and sides of a 9×5 inch loaf pan. 

Add the sugar and oil to a large bowl and mix well.

Add the eggs, sour cream, chopped peaches, and vanilla, mix well. Add the dry ingredients, flour, baking soda, and salt to the wet ingredients and mix well. Add the pecans and mix to combine.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until the sides of the cake start to pull away from the pan. Start checking when you begin to smell your bread. Try 5 minutes before you think it will be done. If it’s not, check again in 5-10 minutes, depending on how underdone it is.

A wooden skewer or toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean with no streaks of batter.

Let the bread cool in the pan for about 10 minutes on a wire baking rack. Then turn the bread out onto the wire rack to cool completely.

How to store it:

1. Let the bread cool completely and wrap the loaf tightly in plastic wrap or aluminum foil.
2. Place the wrapped bread in a large freezer-friendly, air-tight, plastic storage bag and leave at room temperature for up to three days, five days in the fridge, or freeze for up to three months. 
3. If frozen, thaw before serving on the counter or in the fridge overnight. 

Sharon’s Tips:

If your bread is browning too quickly before it is cooked in the middle, cover the top loosely with aluminum foil. Then allow it to cook the rest of the way.

No-stick baking spray is not the same thing as a no-stick cooking spray like Pam. This baking spray is explicitly made for baking bread and cakes and always includes flour. 

If you don’t have no-stick baking spray with flour, grease the bottom and sides of the pan with butter, then sprinkle about a tablespoon of flour on top of the butter. Tap the pan on the counter to evenly distribute the flour and cover the butter in a thin layer. Pour out any excess flour.

This recipe works best with fresh peaches. But, if you are in a pinch, you can substitute frozen or canned peaches that have been drained. 

For something a little different, try toasting slices of this bread and topping it with melted butter. 

You can use a food processor to cut up your peaches, but be careful and don’t over-process them. You want small pieces, not a puree. 

Related recipes:

Easy Southern Fresh Peach Bread is just one example of quick bread, the definition of which is recipes made without yeast. Some other examples of quick bread on my blog are Easy Southern Style Apple Bread, Easy Southern Cheddar Biscuits, Traditional Southern Style Cornbread, Old Fashioned Southern Cornbread, Ultimate Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes, and Sweet Potato Biscuits. Of course, the most famous of all quick bread is banana bread!

If you love peaches as we do, you might also like these recipes: Southern Peaches and Cream Pie, Grilled Chicken with Peach Glaze, Peach Salsa, Southern Peach Cobbler, Fresh Peach Pie, and Summer Fruit Salad with Orange Syrup.

★ If you make this recipe, please give it a star rating below and let me know how you liked it. 

Thanks for visiting Grits and Pinecones!

*This post was originally published on September 10, 2017. Republished on June 2, 2020, with new photos, a “how-to” video, and expanded directions and tips.