Apple Upside-Down Cake

I am honored to get the first look at my friend Kris Holechek Peters' recipes for her upcoming cookbook, The I Love Trader Joe's Vegetarian Cookbook.  I've been testing some recipes before they are published in her upcoming book.  You can't get your hands on the book just yet but you can pre-order the book, and I suggest you do.  This is only one of the very delicious recipes that will show up in the book. (I've pre-ordered mine already!)

I've been given permission to post this one recipe here for you all to enjoy.  I made this cake over the last weekend and it was gone in just one day.  We ate it for breakfast and happily ate it again for an afternoon snack.  If there were some left I would have served it up with ice cream for an late evening snack. 


Apple Upside-Down Cake

4 cups peeled, sliced tart apples (1/2 inch thick), about 3-4 apples
1 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup Trader Joe’s Organic Brown Sugar
1/2 teas. fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 cups Trader Joe’s Unbleached All-purpose Flour
1 1/2 teas. baking powder
1 teas. Trader Joe’s Ground Cinnamon
1/2 teas. salt
1/3 cup mild vegetable oil
3/4 cup Trader Joe’s Organic Evaporated Cane Sugar
1/4 cup applesauce
3/4 cup milk
1 teas. Trader Joe’s Bourbon Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease and flour an 8 inch cake round and line the bottom with parchment.
Because this cake is inverted, it works best with parchment on the bottom, to ensure a clean release.

Prepare the apples. Using a variety of apples will give a more complex flavor than just one variety. In a skillet, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and lemon juice, then add the apples. Simmer until apples are coated with the sugar mixture and slightly softened, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

In a small bowl combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In a large bowl, cream together the oil and sugar. Add the applesauce, milk and vanilla. In two batches, incorporate the dry mix into the wet.

Arrange the apple slices in the bottom of the pan and drizzle any additional juices from the pan over the apples. Spread the cake batter over the top of the apples. Bake from 50-55 minutes, until a toothpick from the center comes out clean of batter, but with a couple of moist crumbs on it. Remove pan from oven and let cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge of the pan and carefully invert cake onto serving dish. Let the cake sit for a minute or two before carefully lifting the pan off. Peel the parchment off of the cake and let it continue cooling for at least 20 additional minutes before serving.

Makes: 10-12 slices of cake

Apple Cake

Chocolate and bundt have been causing a bit of a rut for me.  So it was time to mix things up a bit.  Enter, fruit.  It was time to mix things up a bit here in the oven but I don't know anything about baking with fruit so I consulted Melissa Gray again.  Her cookbook, All Cakes Considered is now one of my favorites.

I tried out her Fresh Apple Cake recipe, but I didn't have the Granny Smith apples that she used, so I substituted Pink Ladies.  I also didn't like that the recipe called for 1 1/2 cup of vegetable oil.  I decided to risk it and I only added 1 cup of Canola Oil. (I almost always use canola instead of vegetable since it's a healthier choice for the hearts in our house.)

The batter was still quite oily:

In my oven this cake should have baked for 70 mins.  The recipe called for 60 and the boy who was waiting for cake before bed convinced me to take it out after 58.  This meant that the center of the cake was not baked enough, however the cake was still plenty tasty.  The cinnamon and nutmeg flavors came through and the apples and walnuts made for wonderful texture.  The best part about this cake was the top of it had the texture of a giant cookie.  We will make this cake again in the fall during apple picking season.  I wonder how it will taste with my very favorite apples, SweeTangoes!