Apple Buttermilk Upside-down Cake may be a mouthful, but it’s a tasty one. With Weaver’s Orchard Apple Cider and Macintosh apples, fresh Lancaster buttermilk, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves – this is a new fall favorite not to be missed!
This small, simple cake whips up quickly and is just one more reason I’m happy to fire up the oven for a quick bake on these chilly days. Plus, with egg, apples, and buttermilk, this makes for a nice breakfast that avoids the bazillion preservatives pre-packaged breakfast cakes generally contain. Give it a go – this one’s a winner!
No, really. This recipe came about when I entered a family baking contest at a harvest party last fall. I wanted to take the things that I love about pineapple upside-down cake (the sweet, show-stopping top) and use a favorite sour cream apple coffee cake recipe for the base. I merged the two and put my own twist on things to create an Apple Buttermilk Upside-down Cake that was a lot of fun to make!
First, I swapped out the classic pineapple rings and pineapple juice for thin apple slices, tons of fall spices, and sweet apple cider which made a lovely, sticky caramelized topping for this cake. Then the batter itself was a spin on an old 1970s Better Homes and Gardens Junior Recipe coffee cake that I have always enjoyed (making and eating), only this time I used buttermilk instead of sour cream to make a light, airy cake and reserved the apples for the patterned upside-down top.
The result was an apple upside-down cake with soft, tart, caramelized apples and a spiced cider-brown sugar syrup that sinks into a springy yellow cake beneath. Yum. I hope you find this new recipe as tasty as my family did! Happy Harvest!
Apple Buttermilk Upside-down Cake
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Bake Time: 25-30 minutes
- Total Time: 40-45 minutes
- Yield: 9-inch cake 1x
- Category: Apples, Breakfast, Desserts, Recipes
Ingredients
Topping
- 4 tbsp. butter, melted
- ¼ cup dark brown sugar
- ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp. ground ginger
- 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
- Dash of salt
- ¼ cup Weaver’s apple cider
- 1 large or 2 medium Weaver’s Macintosh apples, sliced
- ½ lemon, squeezed
Cake Batter
- ½ cup white sugar
- ½ cup butter, cold
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- 1/8 tsp. sea salt
- ½ cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- If your 9-inch round cake pan is heavy-duty (or a skillet), place it on the stove and melt the butter over low heat. Otherwise, melt the butter separately and pour it into the pan. Next, add the dark brown sugar directly into the pan along with the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, salt, and apple cider.
- When everything is well incorporated, slice the apples and toss them with lemon juice. Arrange one layer of apple slices in concentric circles—or another interesting pattern—in the bottom of the pan, in the spiced butter. Set the cake pan aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the sugar and butter together until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat thoroughly.
- In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Add about half of the flour mixture to the large bowl with the sugar-butter mixture. Then stir in the buttermilk. Stir in the remaining flour mixture and beat until smooth and silky. Pour the batter over the prepared apple topping and gently smooth it to the edges with a spatula or knife, as the batter does not spread much during baking.
- Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes before turning it out onto a serving plate, tapping the bottom of the pan several times with an oven-mitted hand. Don’t be afraid to be a little forceful—you want to make sure the cake releases cleanly and the design comes out perfectly when flipped.
- Enjoy this light, spiced cake warm from the oven, or reheat it in the microwave for 30 seconds for a quick and yummy breakfast later!
Notes
Add a ¼ cup of chopped walnuts to the finished batter as a pleasant addition to this cake.
Keywords: Apples, Fall, Upside-down Cake, Apple Cider, Dessert