Summer’s the season for sweet and juicy stone fruit, a delicious dessert all by itself. Our organic box had an abundance of plums and pluots last week, more than we could eat all at once, so I decided to make an upside down cake. Let me tell you it’s easy, and scrumptious enough to serve company, bring to a family picnic or, as we did, enjoy for no reason at all, just because it was dinner time.  Here’s how to make it. Apricots may not be sweet or juicy enough, but just about any stone fruit would work. We used ripe plums and pluots.

Stone Fruit Upside-Down Cake (serves 8)

Work time: 20 minutes

Total Prep: 2 hours 20 minutes

We used a total of 4, 2 plums and 2 pluots.

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter plus 1 Tablespoon –all at room temp

4 firm ripe plums, pluots or juicy peaches

1 cup all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1/3 teaspoon kosher salt

1 large egg

2/3 cup sour cream

1 Teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  I like to lay out all my ingredients, bowls and tools in advance, and pre-measure everything.  For this recipe, some of the dry ingredients could be combined first, so I did. At this age it’s better to pay close attention to the recipe; I’ve skipped steps by accident. 😉

Butter an 8-inch cake pan. I have both 9-inch and 8-inch pans so I have to be careful that I use the correct size. Instead of butter, I used floured spray–the greatest baking tool ever.   Then I lined the pan’s bottom with parchment paper.  It’s simple to cut a circle of parchment paper (another great baking invention.)  Simply place your pan on parchment paper, trace the circumference with pencil and cut out the circle so it fits.

Doesn’t it look good already? Fruit, sugar–what’s not to like?

Melt the extra tablespoon of butter in large skillet at Medium-High heat. Add the stone fruit and ¼ cup of the sugar and cook, tossing, until the sugar is dissolved and the fruit juices look syrupy. This should take 4-5 minutes maximum.

Here’s the fruit nicely arranged in the lined cake pan and the juice being poured over.

Arrange fruit in pan in concentric circles, beginning from the outside. Pour pan juices over top.

Whisk together in small bowl: flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  I love a good whisk, don’t you?

Using an electric mixer, beat the remaining stick of butter and 2/3 cup of sugar until fluffy. Then, beat in egg, sour cream and vanilla.

Add the flour mixture gradually, mixing until just incorporated.

Pour batter over plums. My batter didn’t pour; I had to spread it and so it perhaps wasn’t as pretty in the end as it would have been.

Bake 45-55 minutes depending upon oven–mine went 50 minutes– until toothpick in center comes out clean.  Remove and let cool on rack for an hour.

I think it looked fine–rustic. I might cut 4 min. off cooking time.

Place a large, flat plate over the cake pan and turn the cake upside down onto the plate.

It turned out onto the plate perfectly. However, the fruit migrated more to the sides, leaving a cakey middle.

It was delicious. Not too sweet, not tart. The fruit skins came loose, and I removed them as I cut the cake. I might have removed some of them before cooking.  Give it a try and let me know what you think!