Spiced Nectarine Upside-Down Cake

My food processor died  last week and  I was disappointed because I was hoping to buy an ice cream maker.  One of my favorite blogger was giving out a free kitchen aid food processor and I was hoping to be the lucky winner. Well I didn’t win.  I really didn’t want to buy one a new one because food processors are expensive.

Why are they still expensive and blenders are cheap to buy?

 It took me years before I purchased my first one.   I ended replacing my food processor instead since it’s something that I use all the time.  It’s only a matter of time before my blender stops working.  Talk about bad timing. Luckily the holidays is coming up soon.

Sorry for rambling.  I can’t help it.

So, I’ve made a upside-down cake for the first time. I wasn’t sure how well the cake would turn out.  I was afraid that I would burn the caramel sauce and the cake would be stuck in the pan.  But carefully following the instructions, it was  a delicious and easy cake to make.  Now I’m ready to tackle a pineapple upside-down cake.

Spiced Nectarine Upside-Down Cake

Adapted from Deblicious 

Author Note:

In the original recipe Deb uses peaches but any stone fruit would work in here.  I left out the brandy and cardamom because I didn’t have it on hand.  If you can’t find have brandy and cardamom, don’t worry about it.

This is a good cake.  It can be enjoyed plain or eaten with whip cream.  I even like cake at room temperature with a cup of coffee for breakfast.

Caramel Sauce:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons brandy
3 firm nectarines, sliced with the skin on

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium sauce pan, stir together the butter, brown sugar, salt, cardamom, vanilla and brandy over low heat. Keep stirring until the sugar melts and the mixture starts to bubble and thicken.

Pour the caramel sauce into the cake pan and arrange the sliced nectarines over the caramel.    Set cake pan aside.

Cake Batter:

1/2 cup unsalted  butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Keep the pan over the flame, and continue swishing the butter round until it browns and emits a nutty fragrance. Immediately take the pan off the heat and pour the browned butter into a mixing bowl.

While the browned butter is cooling, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and salt; set this aside.

Go back to your browned butter, and beat in the sugar and vanilla. Before you add the eggs, make sure the butter is completely cooled because you don’t want your eggs to scramble.  Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in 1/3 of the flour mixture into the butter mixture, followed by 1/4 cup of the buttermilk. Mix in half of the remaining flour, followed by the rest of the buttermilk. Finally, gently fold in the rest of the flour.

Spread the cake batter over the nectarines and bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown and springs back when lightly prodded. Allow the cake to rest in the tin for about 5 minutes before inverting it onto a serving platter. Don’t let the cake cool for more than 5 minutes because the caramel and nectarine will stick to the pan.

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

I love summer.  During the summer I love cooking with summer produce especially with berries.  Usually the summer is the only time I can find fresh berries that are sweet enough to use.  So when I saw 99 cents berries on sale the past weekend, I couldn’t pass up a good a deal and stocked up.  Immediately started to search for recipes that used raspberry as a main ingredient.  I’m loving cakes at the moment so I went for the buttermilk cake.

Don’t let the looks of this cake fool you.  This cake is not the prettiest but is good.  It’s a simple buttermilk cake and it’s not overly sweet.  I think the next time I make this I will omit the raspberries and spread raspberry jam instead.  I love raspberries but sometimes the seeds can be annoying but that’s just me being picky.  This is a basic buttermilk cake so feel free to swap the raspberries with blueberries or blackberries.

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

Adapted from Gourmet, June 2009

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup + 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup fresh raspberries (about 5 ounces)

Preheat oven to 400 degree F.  Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes, then beat in vanilla. Add egg and beat well.

At low-speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.

Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter raspberries evenly the on top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out on a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert on a plate.

Blueberry Crumb Coffee Cake

In  high school I took home economics.  Because I was a decent cook , home economics was easy for me.  I found myself helping others which was fine because I got show off my cooking skills.  Eventually my showing off caught up with me when I ruined a dish for my group.  Out of all the things we made the coffee cake was my favorite.  Till this day I regret not writing down the recipe due to laziness.

Since then I’ve been looking for a coffee cake that I had in high school and I think I’ve found it.  This coffee cake reminds me what I had in high school minus the blueberries and orange zest.  This is a Barefoot Contessa recipe and she never disappoints.  This cake not overly sweet and has a nice the hint orange zest.  The best part of the cake is the streusel which gives the cake a nice texture and cinnamon flavor.  I’ve made this cake for dessert but this would perfect for breakfast and with a nice cup of coffee.

Blueberry Crumb Cake

Adapted from Channeling Contessa via Barefoot Contessa

For the Streusel:

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 light brown sugar, lightly packed

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 ground nutmeg

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1 1/3 all-purpose flour

Combine granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl.  Stir in the melted the butter and the flour.  Mix well and set aside.

For the Cake:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature (3/4 stick)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest (I used orange zest)

2/3 cup sour cream

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup fresh blueberries + additional 1/2 cup fresh blueberries

In a bowl shift flour, baking powder, baking soda, kosher salt; and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar in a bowl of an electric mixer on high-speed for 4 to 5 minutes until light.  Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs 1 at a time, then add vanilla, lemon zest, and sour cream.    With the mixer on low-speed, add the flour mixture until well combined.  Fold in the blueberries and stir to be sure that the cake mixture is completely mixed.

Pour the batter into the prepared greased pan and spread out evenly in the pan.  Crumble the streusel topping evenly on top of the batter.  Bake for 40-50 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool completely before serving.

Author Note:

I used orange zest instead of lemon and it came out great.  Also I think you could use other fruit other than blueberries, so feel free to experiment.

Fresh Apple Cake

I had my eyes on this recipe for a while and I couldn’t wait to make it.  Matter of fact I have a list of things that I want to try.  This is one of them, but I know it will take me a few months or even years to complete my “wishlist”.

When I was making this cake, I felt like I was doing something wrong.  I thought I written out the wrong measurements of the ingredients.  After double checking to make sure I was doing everything correctly, I felt better.  The batter is dough like and I was curious on how the cake would bake.  Not only I was worried about the measurements, but I was worried that I might over bake the cake.  The cake looked perfectly baked, but the recipe stated to bake for an hour.

 Either ending up with that was dry and over baked  or leave the cake in the oven for the full hour.  So, I  decided to take a risk and followed the recipe given cooking time.  After the cake finished baking, the cake turned out how it was supposed to be.  The cake exterior is crackled, moist, and very sweet.  The only change I would make is to use granny smith apples and less sugar, but overall a good cake.

Whisk melted butter, eggs, and vanilla.

Coat apples with the dry ingredients.

Pour in the egg mixture in the dry ingredients.

Mix well with your hands.  This what the batter should look like.

Grease your pan and place the batter into the pan.

Serve it with ice cream or eaten by itself.  If your like me, I like a glass milk with my cake.

Fresh Apple Cake

From 17andbaking

Makes a single layer cake

4 cups chopped peeled apples (large chunks)

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven at 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, melted butter, and vanilla together.  Then sit aside.

In another bowl, combine dry ingredients.  Add the chopped peeled apples and mix so the apples are coated with the dry ingredients.  Pour in the wet ingredients(egg mixture) with the dry ingredients and mix well with your hands.

Place in a greased pan and bake for 1 hour.