Today’s Recipe
Summer is prime time for stone fruits like peaches, plums, and apricots. These fruits are so delicious on their own, but they are even tastier when used in delicious desserts. Cobblers, pies, crumbles, tarts – the list of summer stone fruit desserts is simply endless! They cook down really well into jams and compotes and can be incorporated into a variety of desserts, from cakes to cookies to pastries. Because stone fruits share similar flavor profiles, they’re also easy to substitute for one another, making them very convenient to bake with. They are deliciously sweet and tasty when ripe, adding plenty of dimension to the flavor and texture of any dessert! Needless to say, today’s recipe for a stone fruit upside-down cake is a celebration of stone fruits and perfect for your summer dessert table.
A Sweet and Balanced Showstopper
Stone fruit upside-down cakes are a favorite of ours when we’re looking for a delicious and beautiful cake. Why is that? Well, you get to create a wonderful design with whatever fruit you choose, and then pour the batter over the top. Once it bakes, cools slightly, and you flip it over, you then get to see the final product. Upside-down cakes offer a wonderful way to create a showstopping dessert without adding extras like icing, sprinkles, or other decorations. You can also adjust the flavors depending on the fruit you’re using, which makes them very versatile. The caramel topping is a nice deep and rich balance with the freshness of the fruit, and the cake itself is sweet, custardy, and has a beautiful vanilla flavor. Keep reading to find out how you can make this cake at home!
Adaptable and Simple to Make
Another reason why we love upside-down cakes is that they are very adaptable to what you have on hand. This recipe has been created for stone fruits, but that encompasses a very wide range, including nectarines, peaches, plums, apricots, and cherries. You can also use other fruits, though you might want to adapt the flavors of the cake. Citrus slices, for example, would be very good, as would apple or pear, but for these, we would recommend adding a dash of cardamom or cinnamon to the cake. For harder fruits, you may also want to poach them ahead of time, but ripe stone fruits will fully bake and become tender in the oven.
Recipe Testing for Our Stone Fruit Upside-down Cake
This recipe was a prime example of why we need to test our recipes several times before posting, so let’s talk about the recipe testing process. I (Emma) first tested this with a caramel sauce made from white sugar, added plums cut in half, then poured cake batter over the top and baked it. It turned out very delicious but the cake was slightly too sweet and the caramel was chunky as the sugar hadn’t fully dissolved. So, we adjusted these things and Sofie tested it next. She only had peaches so she made do, but the caramel got too dark in the oven. On our final bake, we changed the method for the caramel, simply melting together brown sugar, butter, and a splash of water as the “caramel” sauce. It turned out perfect and we had our recipe ready for the blog!
Ingredients
For this cake, you’ll first need plums, peaches, or apricots (or another fruit), brown sugar, butter, and water. You can adjust this by using any type of fruit you like (as explained above), other types of sugar, and plant-based butter alternatives. Just make sure that the sugar dissolves over a low heat and you don’t burn it. For the cake batter, you’ll need eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, milk, butter, all-purpose (plain) flour, baking powder, and salt. These are very standard cake ingredients but feel free to adjust the flavorings by adding spices like cinnamon or cardamom, vanilla bean paste if you have it, and even almond extract. Again, this is a very customizable cake when it comes to the flavor combinations so it’s really up to you!
How to Make Stone Fruit Upside-down Cake
Start by melting the butter and milk on the stove, then let this cool while you work on the rest of the prep. Grease and line a springform tin, then heat up the ingredients for the caramel on the stove. Once the sugar has dissolved, pour this into the tin and add the halved stone fruit. Make sure you put the cut side down so that you get a beautiful design on the top after baking! Then, for the batter, start by whipping the eggs and sugar together until very light and fluffy. Alternate folding in the wet and dry ingredients, making sure to be gentle so you don’t deflate the eggs. Once this batter has no more dry spots, pour it over the caramel and fruit. Bake and let cool for about 10-15 minutes before you flip it and remove the springform side and bottom. Slice up and enjoy!
Stone Fruit Upside Down Cake
Ingredients
CAKE BATTER
- 250 ml milk
- 57 grams unsalted butter
- 3 large eggs (room temperature)
- 250 grams sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 250 grams all-purpose flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
TOPPING
- 30 grams unsalted butter
- 100 grams brown sugar
- Pinch of salt
- Splash of water
- 7-8 plums, (small sized) peaches, or apricots
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Butter a 10" springform pan and add parchment paper to the bottom for easy removal.
- Melt butter and milk together on the stove. Let the mixture cool a bit, until it's not burning hot but just a bit warm – you can continue to prep the topping + fruit while it cools a bit!
- Combine brown sugar, butter, a pinch of salt, and a tiny splash of water together in a pot on the stove. Heat over low heat and stir together, just until the butter melts and everything combines. Set aside while you work on preparing the fruit.
- Make sure to wash the fruit you are using – we've found that plums, peaches or apricots work well! Cut your stone fruit in half and remove the pits. Set aside while you work on the cake batter.
- Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl.
- Beat eggs and sugar together, either in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, with a hand mixer, or by hand with a whisk.
- The eggs and sugar should about double in volume and become light in color and a little bit thicker than liquid. When you lift the whisk out of the mixture, the mixture that flows back into the bowl should sit on the surface for just a second before sinking back in – that's ribbon stage, and it should be ready for the next step!
- Add the vanilla extract to the eggs and sugar and mix together.
- Now you are going to add your cooled wet ingredients and dry ingredients into the fluffy egg mixture in batches. You can do this by hand or with a paddle/whisk attachment on your stand mixer. First, sift in half of the dry mixture and fold together gently or run the mixer for just 10-15 seconds on low.
- Then, add half of the wet mixture and fold together gently, or run the mixer for another 10-15 seconds on low. If you see dry ingredients stuck on the sides of the bowl, make sure to use a spatula to fold it in.
- Repeat the process of sifting in the rest of the dry ingredients, mix, then add the rest of the wet ingredients and mix together, either by folding the ingredients together or running the mixer.
- Finally, fold everything together a few times at the end until you have a smooth cake batter, making sure nothing is stuck on the sides or the bottom of the stand mixer bowl.
- Pour the brown sugar mixture into the bottom of the prepared cake pan and spread across evenly. If it has hardened since sitting, you can heat it up a little bit to get it to be spreadable!
- Arrange the fruit with the cut side down across the bottom. You can cut some of the halves into quarters for the edges!
- Pour the cake batter over the fruit, making sure it's distributed evenly and covers the fruit.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes on the center rack in the oven. You may want to check it after 30 minutes, depending on how hot your oven runs. When you test the cake with a knife or a cake tester, it should come out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for about 10-15 minutes. We like to leave it for a little bit just so that we don't deflate the cake immediately by turning it upside down.
- After 10-15 minutes, remove the edge of the springform.
- Turn the cake upside down, removing the parchment paper from the bottom. It should be nice and golden but not burnt! Let cool for at least another 15 minutes, but this cake it quite delicious enjoyed slightly warm with some ice cream. Slice and enjoy!
