Call Me Cupcake

Sweet food & photography

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Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

Ahh, my favorite season is finally here, apple season! There is just something so inspiring with a new season, and especially autumn when the air gets crisp and you can just stay inside and bake caramel apple upside down cake. Hehe.

I made my first upside down cake back in 2017 but without caramel, a blood orange upside down cake. While that was so delicious and pretty, I absolutely love fruit baked in caramel, so I made a banana upside down cake later that year and that is the recipe I used when I made this, with a few tweaks here and there.

Remember, when you make the apple pattern, what you see when you make it is not what you will see when you turn the cake upside down! I know, it’s a little confusing. I started making a beautiful pattern but then remembered, it won’t look like this when it’s baked so I sort of had to make the opposite. You can see how I placed the apple slices in one of the photos. Let me know in the comments if you try this recipe!

CARAMEL APPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

6-8 servings

This cake is best served slightly warm, with a dollop of whipped cream with yoghurt, since the cake itself is already rather sweet. But if you have a sweet tooth it would be delicious with some vanilla ice cream too! Feel free to experiment with the spices, maybe add some ginger or allspice, or use lemon instead of orange! Do make sure to use flaky salt and not table salt, because that would make it too salty. Also, make sure the bottom of your pan is tightly sealed, or else the caramel will leak out.

INGREDIENTS

TOPPING

  • 75 g salted butter
  • 125 g (1/2 cup + 1 tbsp, tightly packed) light muscovado sugar
  • 1/8 tsp. flaky salt
  • 2 apples

CAKE

  • 200 g (1 1/3 cup + 1 1/2 tbsp.) all purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
  • 1/4 tsp. flaky salt
  • 125 g softened salted butter
  • 180 g (3/4 cup + 1 1/2 tbsp) granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 150 ml (2/3 cup) thick yoghurt (greek or turkish), at room temp.
  • zest from 1 orange

INSTRUCTIONS

TOPPING

  1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Butter a 22 cm (9 inch) springform pan and cover the bottom of the pan with a round piece of baking paper.
  2. Slice the apples thinly.
  3. Melt 75 g butter in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the muscovado sugar and cook for 2-3 minutes over medium heat until combined and sugar is melted. Stir in the salt. Don’t worry if the mixture feels gritty, it will disappear once the cake is baked. Spread the caramel over the baking paper in the bottom of the pan. Place the apple slices in a pattern on top of the caramel.

CAKE

  1. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the dry ingredients in three additions, and the yoghurt in two, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Add orange zest and beat until just smooth.
  3. Gently spoon the batter into the prepared pan, over the caramel and apples. Smooth the top with a spatula.
  4. Make sure to place a baking sheet covered with baking paper on the lowest rack of the oven to catch any drips from the cake (it will most likely leak a little bit). Bake the cake on the middle rack, for 40-45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Start checking around 35 minutes, as you might need to cover the cake with foil if it’s browning too much.
  5. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare a large serving platter or plate to put the cake on. After 5 minutes, carefully remove the sides of the springform pan (they’re hot!). Invert the cake onto the platter and peel off the piece of baking paper. Let cool a bit before serving with yoghurt whipped cream. The cake can be stored covered at room temperature for a while, but if stored longer than a day, it should be refrigerated.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. This is beautiful – the cake, but also the Dutch Golden Age still life photos.. Do you think you could bake the cake in something like a similar size iron frying pan? That way you could make the topping right in the pan you bake in (no baking parchment, unfortunately, but the cake could release from a seasoned pan.) .

    Reply

    • Thank you SO much, Margy! I bet I could use an iron pan too! That would be beautiful, but I only have kind of small ones! Maybe I need to get a bigger one!

      Reply

  3. WOW! What a beautiful video. I so appreciate that there were not verbal directions (no offense). The beauty of the wood table, your clothing, the apples, and grey baking bowls, etc. were just STUNNING, as well as the music! I have to eat gluten free and have missed making a Tarte Tatin. THIS recipe will be a wonderful one to make with gluten-free flour!!! I CAN’T WAIT!!!!! Thank you……

    Reply

    • Thank you so much, Lynne!
      Haha, non taken! Verbal directions do take away from the tranquility of these videos in my opinion, and also I’m not a fan of speaking on camera 😉
      Oooh, do let me know how it goes with gluten free flour! My partner recently started eating gluten free and will probably do so for life, I have so much to learn when it comes to gluten free baking! Thank you again, Lynne!

      Reply

  5. Mmmmm, cardamon and salted butter. Love that combination. I also love your video. The care you put in making the cake is so very beautiful. Do you think it would work with pears aswell?

    Reply

    • Hi Carol! It sounds like there might be a problem with your pan, I’ve made this recipe about 5 times and it does leak a tiny bit but if there is a huge leak you might consider getting a new pan!

      Reply

  7. How long does this cake keep? Please recommend ways to keep it fresh. Also, can leftovers of this cake by frozen for the future?.

    Reply

    • I’d store it covered in the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap! I’d say it lasts for a few days, but I never keep cakes that long 😉

      Reply

  8. Thank you for adding in measurements for us Americans (Yes, I agree, we are ridiculous with our measurements). I have made & love your upside-down banana cake, but it took a while to convert measurements so, thank you.

    Reply

    • I’m so glad it’s helpful, Gwen! The measurements are a little confusing indeed but I prefer using weight anyway because it’s much more accurate! Thank you for your kind comment!

      Reply

  9. My wife and I Made this recipe on Sunday and it came out SO good! We followed your instructions and it came out just like your images. It was so tasty that we ended up giving half to our neighbors or we would have ate the whole thing in one night…so delicious thank you!

    Reply

  10. Your photo is stunning and the video is truly sublime. It can reignite the desire to keep cooking and baking during this pandemic. How could I not try this?

    Because of Covid, a full size cake wouldn’t work for me today, so I decided to try two smaller cakes in mini cake pans, one is a square and the other, a heart. I worried about them not releasing, but it wasn’t a problem whatsoever, so for those concerned about leakage, this will work perfectly well as long as you don’t overfill your baking pans. They look beautiful! The heart cake will be a little gift this afternoon for a friend’s birthday as it’s about to rain and our plans have been postponed. Thank you so much for all the visual and tasty beauty. Stay well.

    Reply

  12. Hi Linda – Thanks for this awesome recipe! Made for my son’s 2nd birthday who is an apple lover. It was a big hit with my family. The whole cake hardly lasted few hours.. Such a beautiful cake.. Tasted heavenly!!

    Reply

  13. I just tried this recipe, unfortunately the caramel didn’t work for me. I made it 3 times but it didn’t work, so I had to try another way of making caramel. Except from that the cake base was lovely (I used a little less sugar for the cake). Tasted yummy, thanks for the recipe! Although I couldn’t make it look as pretty as in the pictures. ?

    Reply

    • Hii Ezgi! Sorry to hear it wasn’t working for you, may I ask what the problem was? Like how the caramel didn’t work out? Glad you enjoyed the recipe!

      Reply

  14. Soy fan de tí Linda!
    Me encanta cada una de las recetas que subes, he preparado tantos pasteles tuyos y salieron tan bien, fueron tan exitosos para todos los paladares (y por supuesto el mío).
    Sólo tengo palabras de agradecimiento para tí, tus publicaciones y tus fotos. Haces que cada día me guste más el mundo de la repostería y la belleza en los platos.
    Esta receta es increíble, el pastel de manzana ha salido hace apenas 1 hora y no he podido resistir por más tiempo en probarlo. Mi boca no deja de salivar.
    Un abrazo Linda!

    Reply

    • This is so sweet of you, thank you so so much for your kind words <3 I'm so very happy you enjoyed all the recipes you tried! Sending you big hugs!

      Reply

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