Easy Apple Upside-Down Cake
Easy Apple Upside-Down Cake is an incredibly soft cornmeal cake topped with gooey caramel and sweet apples. The cornmeal helps create crispy edges, apples, and a sweet caramel glaze make this cake particularly delicious.
Servings: 8 slices
Calories: 76kcal
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
- ½ cup for the caramel plus ¾ cup (for the batter) sugar
- 1 ½ pounds Golden Delicious apples about 4 medium, peeled, quartered, cored, each quarter cut into 2 wedges
- ¾ cup all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup yellow cornmeal
- ½ cup boiling water
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup whole milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat, using a pastry brush to coat sides with butter as it melts. Add ½ cup sugar and cook until sugar dissolves and mixture turns deep golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 6 minutes.
- Sprinkle ¼ cup sugar evenly over bottom of skillet, and cook until sugar starts to bubble and turn golden brown, about 3 minutes. Add apple wedges and gently shake skillet to distribute caramel evenly. Cover and cook until apples release their juices, about 5 minutes.
- Uncover and reduce heat; cook until apples are tender and caramel thickens and coats apples, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes Remove from heat and set aside.
- Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in small bowl to blend. Place cornmeal in large bowl; pour ½ cup boiling water over and stir to blend. Add 5 tablespoons room temperature butter and ¾ cup sugar to cornmeal mixture. Using electric mixer, beat until well blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Beat in flour mixture alternately with milk in 2 additions each. Carefully pour batter over apples in pan.
- Bake cake until golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool cake in skillet 5 minutes. Run small knife between cake and pan sides to loosen cake. Carefully invert cake onto ovenproof.
Notes
- Cool before inverting: 5 minutes in the skillet keeps the cake from falling apart when flipped.
- Dairy-free option: use plant-based butter and milk.
- Storage: counter up to 2 days, fridge up to 1 week.
- Nutrition: the original calorie estimate looked too low for this recipe, please recalculate or confirm with your recipe plugin before publishing.
Nutrition
Calories: 76kcal | Carbohydrates: 15g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 0.3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 256mg | Potassium: 50mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 16IU | Calcium: 74mg | Iron: 1mg