Upside-Down Apple Cake – Easy to Make, Easy to Eat
This wholemeal upside-down apple cake is super easy to make and and the results are better than satisfactory – a lot better. It’s quick to prepare and tastes delicious. The slightly caramelised apple pairs well with the subtle tones of cardamom and cider.
Earlier this month, I posted 80 seasonal and delicious apple recipes. I’ve already made apple cider scones this autumn, but with apples galore at the moment, I just couldn’t resist using them in another recipe. Actually, I’ve been using our windfalls in all sorts of ways. They go very nicely with cabbage and make a great addition to mashed potato too. I’ve also been enjoying homemade apple sauce on my porridge in the mornings – one of the best uses for seasonal cooking apples or windfalls in my opinion.
Upside-Down Apple Cake
Having said that, this upside-down apple cake is exceedingly good too. It has a lovely flavour with the slightly caramelised apple on top and notes of cardamom and cider throughout. The texture is also very good. It’s one of the easiest apple cakes to make and there’s no need to peel the apples – bonus!
The cake can be made with just wholemeal flour, but I used some Free From Fairy gluten-free wholegrain flour as well. It’s a really nice mix and adding a little to my ordinary wholemeal flour or spelt flour seems to enhance the bake. If you ever need gluten-free flour, this is the one to go for. It comes in both plain and self-raising versions and both are a mix of wholegrain teff, sorghum and buckwheat with a little tapioca and potato starch thrown in for good measure. I love it.
Both the cider and kefir react with the bicarbonate of soda to help with the rise. Bakes with wholemeal flour don’t generally rise as well as those using plain flour, so a bit of extra help doesn’t go amiss. Don’t worry if you don’t have any kefir, you can use buttermilk, sour milk or watered down yoghurt instead. You can also omit the cider if you like and substitute it with more kefir / buttermilk / sour milk / watered down yoghurt.
Upside-Down Apple Cake – The Recipe
Upside-Down Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 125 g unsalted butter room temperature
- 125 g light muscovado sugar
- seeds from 8 cardamom pods - ground
- 3 large eggs
- 200 g wholemeal flour I used 180g wholemeal & 20g Free From Fairy gluten-free wholegrain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 3 tbsp cider
- 3 tbsp kefir buttermilk or watered down yoghurt
- 2 dessert apples - cored and sliced but not peeled.
- 1 tbsp 25g demerara sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 180℃/350℉/Gas mark 4.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and muscovado sugar together until light and fluffy. Add in the cardamom pods and cream some more.
- Beat in the eggs, one by one, adding a little of the flour if the mixture looks like curdling.
- Sieve in the dry ingredients, including the Free From Fairy gluten-free wholegrain flour if using. Throw out any large pieces of bran remaining in the sieve. Gently stir until just incorporated.
- Gradually add the cider followed by the kefir, stirring as you go.
- Slice the apples and lay them on the bottom of a greased deep round 20cm (8") silicone mould or lined tin.
- Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top.
- Scrape the batter from the bowl over the apples and level the top.
- Bake for about 40 minutes or until the cake is firm to the touch and an inserted skewer comes out mostly clean.
- Leave to cool in the tin, then turn out onto a serving plate so that the apple slices are on top.
Other Tin and Thyme apple cakes you might like
- Almond apple cider cake
- Apple crumble & custard mini cakes
- Blackberry & apple cupcakes
- Dorset apple cake with chocolate caramel
- Honey apple cardamom mini bundt cakes
- Kale apple cake
- Spiced toffee apple bonfire cakes
- Toffee apple hazelnut cake
Linkies
I’m sharing this easy recipe for upside-down apple cake with Curly’s Cooking for #CookBlogShare, with Only Crumbs Remain for #BakingCrumbs, with JibberJabberUK for #LoveCake and with Searching for Spice for #CookOnceEatTwice.
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this easy upside-down apple cake, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below or via social media. Do share a photo on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot it. For more delicious and nutritious recipes, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest.
Upside-Down Apple Cake. PIN IT.
angiesrecipes
25th October 2018 at 5:18 amUp side down cake is our top favourite! Yours turned out so good and I love the use of kefir in baking so much!
Choclette
28th October 2018 at 1:18 pmThanks Angie. We always have loads of kefir hanging around and it works brilliantly in baking.
Corina Blum
25th October 2018 at 6:37 amI love any kind of apple cake and I especially love the caramelisation you get with an upside down cake. This is so lovely and seasonal and a great way to use up windfalls. Thanks for sharing with #CookOnceEatTwice!
Choclette
28th October 2018 at 1:17 pmThanks Corina. It was a lovely cake and because there were only two of us, it lasted us 4 whole days – though I don’t think it would have been good for much longer than that.
Sisley White
25th October 2018 at 12:49 pmThis is a great bake. It’s making me so hungry.
I need to make this at the weekend.
Choclette
28th October 2018 at 1:16 pmThanks Sisley. It’s a nice easy one to make, but looks a bit more impressive for being served upside down.
Cat | Curly's Cooking
25th October 2018 at 9:17 pmThis looks so tasty. Apples are always delicious at this time of year and your cake looks like a fantastic way to use them. I love the flavours and also that you don’t need to peel the apples! Bonus! Thanks for sharing with #CookBlogShare.
Choclette
28th October 2018 at 1:14 pmThanks Cat. I love apple season, but I do get bored of peeling apples quite quickly, so this cake is a particularly good one in that respect.
Jo Allison / Jo's Kitchen Larder
25th October 2018 at 9:20 pmI love both upside-down cakes and apple cakes/pies of any description really! This one sounds really delightful and the fact that it is made with wholemeal flour and kefir and apples makes it really healthy, almost medicinal 🙂 It sounds like easy to make and definitely easy to eat! Thank you for sharing with #BakingCrumbs 🙂
Choclette
28th October 2018 at 1:13 pmThanks Jo. I’m not sure marketing this as a medicinal cake would make it seem particularly appealing, but yes, it’s definitely an uplifting one 😀
Kavita Favelle
27th October 2018 at 7:37 amI love the sound of cardamom and cider with apples, sounds perfect and a little variation on the usual cinnamon. And the upside down aspect is fab, not made up upside down cake for eons!
Choclette
28th October 2018 at 1:12 pmThis was the first upside-down cake I’d made for eons too. It’s such a good thing to do with fruit especially ones that go well with caramel flavours. I often use cardamom with fruit as I think it pairs just as well as cinnamon – though I love that too.
Lucy
27th October 2018 at 1:52 pmI have some Bramleys to bake with, do you think these would work as well? I am just imagining the delicious spiced flavour and drooling already.
Choclette
28th October 2018 at 1:10 pmI reckon Bramleys would work fine, though I’d probably double the amount of demerara sprinkled on top.
nessjibberjabberuk
28th October 2018 at 7:06 pmIt looks delicious. I love the addition of cider to give it extra apple goodness.
Choclette
29th October 2018 at 6:11 pmIt’s hard to beat an apple cider cake at this time of year Ness 😀
Mayuri Patel
29th October 2018 at 7:16 pmLove cooked apples so this cake definitely has me salivating. Love that you’ve used wholewheat flour.
Choclette
4th November 2018 at 4:47 pmThanks Mayuri. I pretty much always use wholemeal flour in my baking. It’s more nourishing and I actually find it tastier too.
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain
31st October 2018 at 1:58 pmYay for upsidedown cakes – I love how easy they are the endless flavour combos you can achieve with them. i’d most definitely love to try a slice (or two) of your apple version Choclette, it looks absolutely scrummy 🙂 Thankyou for linking it up to #BakingCrumbs,
Angela xx
Choclette
4th November 2018 at 4:44 pmThanks Angela. Yay for upside-down cakes indeed. I can feel a pear one coming on next.
Kat (The Baking Explorer)
2nd November 2018 at 9:24 amI would love a slice of this with custard!
Choclette
4th November 2018 at 4:32 pmThanks Kat. Warm from the oven, this would be excellent with custard.
Chris (Thinly Spread)
7th November 2018 at 9:25 amOooh, I haven’t made an upside down cake for ages, yours looks delicious! Perfect for apple season.
Choclette
7th November 2018 at 3:41 pmThanks Chris. I do love a good apple cake and upside down ones are some of the easiest to make.