Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake

[Granny Smith]

Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake

3 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1/3 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1/3 c. shortening
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/2 t. vanilla, divided

Heat oven to 350 deg.

Melt butter in 10" iron skillet. Add apples and cook on medium heat until apples are tender.

Meanwhile, put flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, shortening, milk, egg and 1 t. of vanilla into a mixing bowl. Beat with electric beater until thick and smooth, about 2 minutes. Set aside.

Once apples are tender, add brown sugar, a pinch of salt, and 1/2 t. vanilla. Cook until mixture begins to thicken. Take off heat and pour cake mixture over all, smoothing to level.

Bake 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let set for 20 minutes.

Loosen edges of cake with butter knife, place platter over pan, and carefully invert cake onto platter. If some of the apples stick in the pan, scrape them off and put them on the cake. Cool.

[Sheila]

This sounds good think this will be on my thanksgiving menu.

[Granny Smith]

I made 2 cakes today, a strawberry one and this one. They're both gone! The kids picked at the strawberry cake all day, till it was gone, then ate this one at suppertime. There was one piece left and I put it in Dan's lunch for tomorrow.

This is unusual because a cake usually lasts us at least 2 days.

This was a good cake. I think it would be even better if allowed to stand overnight, so the caramel can seep into the cake more. I may never be able to test that theory, though.

[eyeofthestorm]

I do not have an iron skillet...and the skillets I have I believe will be too shallow. Any reason I couldn't cook the fruit/caramel in a skillet and transfer to a baking pan?

[Sheila]

You can use any skillet Sandra just try to use a heavy one,if your able.

[Granny Smith]

I think you could do it in a round cake pan on top of the stove. I wouldn't set the heat too high, though, or you might warp it.

[Valerie]

My mom has always done her upside down cakes on top of the stove in a regular skillet with a tight lid on low. Her old wearever set she got when I was a baby had a recipe for that, and she still does them that way (especially now that her oven is kaput).

[Granny Smith]

Cool! I'm going to have to try that. I feel sorry for poor Dan, having to eat upside-down cake all the time. Such a hardship!

[eyeofthestorm]

Okay, I just made two of these...with squash (yes, I am still getting squash, but today's the end of the season...so maybe today I'll get my last squash!).

Anyway, just tasting from the pan, I think the squash work just fine. I'd like to figure how to introduce some lemon juice, to make the squash a little more tart. I also over cooked mine - not burned, but I had unrealistic expectations about how thick the stove top cooked caramel would get, and I just let it keep cooking and cooking. It looks fine and tastes fine (from my finger!). I'll have some after dinner tonight.

[eyeofthestorm]

Wowzers! This cake is fantastic. I wasn't sure I'd like it, because it sounds like pineapple upside down cake and I'm not partial to that. This is WAY better.

The cake itself is fantastic. I would make the batter, top it with crumbs, and serve it for coffee cake.

[Granny Smith]

The cake is actually the Dinette Cake from the Betty Crocker cookbook, so it could be used for just about anything. It is a small recipe, about the size of a Jiffy mix.

[nappy]

The upside down cake was good but oh-so-sweet and rich. Plan to use the cake mixture for other desserts such as with cherries. Won't use the brown sugar/butter base though but will thicken it like for pies/toppings. We have plenty of sour cherries from last year in the freezer and canned.

[Granny Smith]

Ooooo... cherry would be great!

[Valerie]

I made this the other day. Despite the fact that I forgot to put the vanilla in the cake, and the fact that I used self-rising flour in addition to the b. powder and salt in the recipe, it came out good! I did wonder why the cake tasted a little tart; I figured it was just because I forgot the vanilla. Then just now I was pulling flour and sugar out of the freezer to make muffins and realized that the flour next to the sugar was S.R. Oh well! It's still good!

[Granny Smith]

Cakes aren't as fussy as their reputation suggests. I mess around with recipes (or screw them up) all the time and hardly ever have a total failure. The chickens wish I'd have more failures. They get all the bad mistakes.