Saturday, August 22, 2020
Last Sunday, with the remaining Gala apples, I made an apple upside cake. The cake turned out well, so I thought I would share the recipe.
First allow me to explain, I found this recipe for Pineapple Upside Down Cake on Food.com in December 2015.
The thing I noticed about the recipe, the way it incorporated the flour mixture in three parts with the milk in two parts, starting with the flour. From past experience, I have had a lot of success with cakes when I combine the milk and flour ingredients in this manner.
After I made the Pineapple Upside Down Cake, using slightly different ingredients (I like unsalted butter for baking- I keep this item on-hand frozen, until I need to use it), I decided I liked the way the cake turned out and the amount of batter was perfect for the smaller two layer cakes I prefer to make today.
Over the years, I have tweaked the base cake batter recipe until I am pretty pleased with the results. Below, the changes I made to the original recipe to get the basic cake batter recipe I use today.
2 tablespoons margarinePineapple Upside Down Cake Ingredient9 pineapple ringsPineapple Upside Down Cake Ingredient9 maraschino cherriesPineapple Upside Down Cake Ingredient3/4 cup brown sugarPineapple Upside Down Cake Ingredient- 1/2 cup soft
margarineunsalted butter - 3/4 cup white sugar (added 2 tablespoons of sugar to the 3/4 cup)
21.5 eggs, beaten (see note 4 below)- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups flour
21¼ teaspoons baking powder- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda (new ingredient)
1/21/4 teaspoon salt2/3 cup milk3/4 cup buttermilk- 2 teaspoons of club soda (some like adding this to help the cake rise, mix in the buttermilk)
Follow the instructions for the original recipe to mix the ingredients for the batter. One note, the first step, when mixing the butter and sugar- I cream the unsalted butter for about two minutes then slowly add the sugar. I then let the mixer cream the two ingredients (butter & sugar) together for at least 3 minutes.
The other note, I bake the two 7" round cake layers (shown above) in a 350 degree oven for about 26 minutes.
For the Apple Upside Down Cake I made last Sunday, I only used about 2/3 of the batter in one 7" cake pan. I sautéed the Gala apples for a couple of minutes adding sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter and cornstarch then drained almost all of the juice off before layering the apples in the bottom of the sprayed cake pan. I then spooned the cake batter over the apples and baked for about 28 minutes.
Note 3, I like Baker's Joy baking spray to insure my cakes do not stick to the pans.
Note 4, the cake is much better if allowed to sit for at least 4 hours before cutting. Cutting the cake before that, in my opinion, leaves a more eggy aftertaste, the reason- I reduced the amount of beaten eggs in the recipe.