To make the whipped cream, first place the mixing bowl and the beater in the freezer for at least 20 minutes so they can chill.
To whip the cream, place in the chilled mixing bowl the cream, sugar, lime zest, vanilla extract, and ginger and then whip with the chilled beater until soft peaks form. Be careful not to over whip the cream. If you’re going to serve the cream with the peaches immediately, skip the next step.
If you’re going to freeze individual dollops of whipped cream so you can serve the cream later, line a sheet pan that will fit in your freezer with parchment paper. Scoop 8 even-sized scoops onto the sheet, place the sheet uncovered in the freezer, and let the cream sit until chilled and hard, about 2 hours. To store the dollops, remove the sheet from the freezer, and then gently place the frozen dollops into a storage container next to each other, placing parchment paper between each layer if you need to stack the frozen dollops.
It’s up to you if you want to serve your peaches peeled or not. I’m fine with them unpeeled but you may prefer them peeled and that’s cool, too. If you want to peel them, bring a medium pot of water to a boil and make an X incision on each axis of each peach. Place the peaches in the boiling water and let them boil for 30 seconds. With a slotted spoon or tongs, remove the peaches and then run them under cold water, gently peeling off the skins. Repeat until all the peaches are peeled.
Slice the peaches, peeled or unpeeled, in half, remove the pits, and then slice each half into 4 slices. Taste the peaches. If they’re sweet and soft enough for your taste, go ahead and place them into bowls and then top each bowl of sliced peaches with a dollop or two of the whipped cream, either fresh or frozen, and then serve.
If the peaches are too tart and hard, you can cook them for a few minutes to make them more sweet and soft. To do this, heat the butter in a large, deep skillet on low heat and stir in the brown sugar. When both the butter and the brown sugar have melted, after about a minute or so, add the peach slices to the skillet. Gently stir the slices until they’re lightly coated in the sugary butter, and then cook for a couple of minutes until the peaches are fragrant, juicy, and soft. Spoon the peaches along with the melted butter and juices into bowls then top with the whipped cream.
Notes
This dessert is meant to showcase ripe, in-season peaches. To tell if they’re ripe, they should be soft (don’t squeeze them, though, as they’ll easily bruise) and smell fragrant. If your peaches are firm, let them sit out on the counter overnight and they should be ripe by the next day. You also want your peaches to be preferably freestone, as this guarantees the fruit won’t stick to the pit. While you can certainly serve the peaches with freshly whipped cream, I’d never seen whipped cream frozen into individual dollops and thought it was a terrific idea, as it makes this a great do-ahead dessert. Matter of fact, if you find that you like having frozen whipped cream on hand, you can easily double the recipe, too.