Old Fashioned Apple Upside Down Cake
Old Fashioned Apple Upside Down Cake. A decades old family recipe that uses very simple ingredients to create a comfort food dessert that everyone will love.
Originally published Jan 30, 2008
When I say old fashioned, that's exactly what I mean. Made from scratch using simple ingredients just like your grandmother would have made. I've been making this one for decades.
Especially at this time of year, this apple upside down cake is one of those recipes that you make when "there's nothing in the house". You likely have all the ingredients on hand to whip this one up at any time.
I like to serve this one warm from the oven with a scoop of vanilla bean or even caramel swirl ice cream or a dollop of fresh whipped cream. Delicious for a fall Sunday dinner dessert or at any time of year.
The only improvement I would make is to add a big scoop of vanilla ice cream!
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Old Fashioned Apple Upside Down Cake
Old Fashioned Apple Upside Down Cake - a decades old family recipe that uses very simple ingredients to create a comfort food dessert that everyone will love; a classic Autumn dessert that's only improved by a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Ingredients
For the Apple Layer
- 6 apples peeled, cored and cut into thick wedges
- ⅓ cup butter
- ⅔ cup white sugar, you can use light brown sugar if you prefer
- 3 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the Cake Layer
- ½ cup butter
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1-2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I use 2)
- 2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup milk
Instructions
To Prepare the Apple Layer
- Melt the ⅓ cup butter in a large non-stick sauté pan.
- Add the sugar, water and cinnamon. Cook over medium heat until the mixture gets foamy, then add the apples.
- Cook the apples in the cinnamon and sugar syrup just until they begin to soften.
- Transfer the apple slices to the prepared pan and pour the syrup from the pan over them.
To Prepare the Cake Batter
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x9 inch baking pan or a 10 inch round cake pan well.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Beat in the vanilla extract.
- Sift together the flour and baking powder.
- Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. In general, I add the dry ingredients in 3 portions and the milk in 2 additions.
- Dollop the batter by heaping tablespoonfuls all over the surface of the apple layer and then spread out evenly to the edges of the pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for about 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
- The toothpick test is the best way to ensure that this cake is fully baked.
Notes
As the two different photos show, you can use more or less cinnamon to your preference.
Nutrition Information
Yield
12Serving Size
12 ServingsAmount Per Serving Calories 277Saturated Fat 8gCholesterol 63mgSodium 133mgCarbohydrates 37gFiber 2gSugar 34gProtein 1g
Thank you for this way of preparing this Tarte Tatin by caramelizing the apples on the stove fisrt. I saw this done on Masterchef Australia, and I had forgotten until you came with this recipe. Now I have it "on paper" and will not forget it again. Thanks so much, Barry ! Happy cooking !
Tarte Tatin would use pastry but maybe we could coin a new name "Gateau Tatin." 😀
This looks terrific. I'm going to try halving the recipe as I have smaller (6") cake pans and there are only the two of us.
I'd suggest an 8 inch round pan. 6 is likely too small for half this recipe.
So I have my butter softening and my egg is on the counter. Then I read the recipe again and it says "prepared pan". How is this pan to be prepared?
It's in the first instruction for the cake batter.
Thank you. I looked at the recipe a few times but kept on not seeing the pan preparation part. I had gone ahead and made it, and used baking spray on the pan so all was well. It baked up fine in the 6" pan but a 7" one would have been better. Thanks for posting this recipe. We enjoyed it.
Hi, thanks for this gorgeous recipe 🙂
I (and my entire family) was a HUGE fan of the apple upside down cake recipe you had uploaded before this one as well, and silly me I hadn't saved it anywhere else. Could you please tell me where I can find it? Or if you could pls re-upload it? 🙂
Thanks so much!
This is really just an updated and slightly simplified version of an older recipe.
Can this be done in a spring form pan or will the syrup leak?
Not a good idea. Definite leakage issue.
This looks delicious, just going to have to get a tin without removable bottom and convert all the measurements to British ones first! Shamefully unprepared. Quick question - I always use Bramley apples, i.e. Sharp ones usually used in crumbles, pies etc. Will they be ok here? (Guessing so as the syrup will counteract the sharpness). Thanks!
Yes, they will be fine. We do have new recipe structure software that allows me to convert to metric. I'll do that for this recipe now. New recipes will have the measurements automatically but I have to manually do older recipes which will likely take a year or so to convert about 1600 recipes!!
I made this cake recently in a well-oiled bundt pan, with King of Tompkins County apples from our own trees. It looked and tasted splendid! Because I was using a bundt pan, I cut down on the amount of apples in the recipe but not by much.
This looks delicious can this be made in. A 9*3 inch round pan.?
Should be okay. Watch the timing. Trust the toothpick test for doneness.
Made this cake for afternoon tea over the weekend and it turned out fabulous! Absolutely loved it. I have a smaller 6” pan so ended up using cutting the cake recipe into half.
I had a question...can I use a gluten free flour in place of regular all purpose flour for this cake recipe?
I do very little gluten free baking and have never tired this recipe as a gluten free version. If you do, please let us know your results.
I found the amount of apples called for in this recipe to be far too many -maybe my apples were too larger? Next time, I would piece the apples into the pan as I go along. As it was, this was divided among two 8-inch pans and the batter was divided among those two pans. They are in the oven now and smelling great. (By the way, the batter tastes GREAT! (I know, we're not supposed to lick the bowl - but I grew up licking the bowl - so. . . . Thank you for a great recipe.
Barry which apples work best for this? I think McIntosh might be too soft?
Yes any applesauce apples would be too soft. Go for firmer like yellow or red delicious apples.
This looks delicious but unfortunately l cannot do dairy, could l use Almond milk