Skip to footer

Apple ginger upside down cake

Apple and ginger shine in this autumn cake. Serve with a scoop of ice cream and eat leftovers for breakfast the next day.

|
The Runaway Spoon
Let your artistic flair shine with this artfully arranged upside down apple ginger cake.

As autumn rolls around, I start cooking with (and eating) a lot of apples. In season, locally grown apples are a wonder, on par with eating seasonal, local strawberries, instead of the chemically ripened fruit flown in from miles and miles away.

So I make the most of the bounty in cooking both sweet and savory. Last week, I included apples in my deliciously autumnal Roasted Pork with Sweet Potatoes and Hard Cider Cream Sauce, and here I use the little beauties in a sweet preparation, that makes a wonderful dessert with a scoop of ice cream or a perfect breakfast treat.

An upside down cake is a chance to be really artistic in the kitchen. Feel free to arrange the apple slices are creatively as you can manage. Flip the cake over and you’ve got a really beautiful creation to share. Ginger and apple is an amazing flavor combination, and I incorporate the ginger in layers here, using fresh, powdered, and crystallized.

Apple ginger upside down cake
Serves 6

For the apples:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1-inch piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
2 apples, I prefer golden delicious

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a 9-inch round cake pan lightly with cooking spray.

2. Cut the butter into cubes and drop it the pan. Place the pan in the oven for 3 to 5 minutes until the butter melts. Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle over the brown sugar and the ginger. Stir with a spatula to combine, then spread the sugar mixture around the pan. It won’t cover the bottom completely, just make sure the sugar is not all in one place. Core and slice the apples into 1/4-inch slices and fan out over the butter mixture in an attractive pattern. Some apples can overlap, but you only want one layer.

For the cake:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger

1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla, then beat in the flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt alternately with the buttermilk, scraping down the bowl, until the batter is smooth. Beat in the crystallized ginger until evenly distributed. Dollop the batter over the apples in the pan, then use dampened fingers to press it out to cover the apples.

2. Bake the cake from 20 to 30 minutes until firm, golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Leave the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then run a thin knife around the edge to loosen it. Invert the cake onto a platter, leave for about a minute to loosen, then remove the pan.

Related post on The Runaway Spoon: Sweet potato and apple soup

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Apple ginger upside down cake
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Food/Stir-It-Up/2015/1103/Apple-ginger-upside-down-cake
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe