I've wanted to try making a yeasted cake for ages. I was initially eyeing up a savarin. But then I came across this apple upside down cake and figured maybe it'd be fun to give it a try instead. It seemed very straight-forward and what's not to love about a combination of apples, brown sugar, nuts, and lots of butter?

I had intended to make this with pecans as the recipe called for. But it looks like we must have run out of pecans at some point and I forgot to restock. What we did have though, was lots of walnuts. In fact, we had somehow ended up with two open bags of walnuts in the freezer. So now we have marginally less walnuts and more cake. That seems like a pretty good trade to me!

I know you're supposed to peel apples for baked goods. But it's extra effort and then I either have to find something to do with the peels or throw them out. (And none of my attempts at making apple jelly have been terribly successful.) So I decided to just slice my apples with the peels on for this. I think it worked out just fine.

Yeasted Apple Upside Down Cake

Slightly adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients

• 110g unsalted butter, divided
• 100g chopped walnuts or pecans
• 180mL whole milk
• 100g brown sugar
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 1-2 apples, sliced
• 290g all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. instant yeast or 2 1/2 tsp. dry active yeast
• 50g sugar
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, groud
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Grease a 20cm (8") square pan.
2. Melt half the butter over medium heat and add the nuts.
3. Cook until the nuts have browned a little.
4. Dump the nuts and butter into the prepred pan and spread into an even layer.
5. Add the remaining butter to the now empty pot along with the milk and place it over low heat to warm up.
6. Once the milk mixture is very warm (50-60°C), remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.
7. Meanwhile, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the nuts in the pan.
8. Drizzle the honey over the brown sugar.
9. Layer the apple slices over the honey.
10. In a bowl, combine the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt.
11. Add the warm milk mixture, egg, and vanilla and beat with electric mixer for 1 minute. The batter will probably climb the beaters, just keep going as best you can.
12. Scoop the very sticky batter into the pan on top of the apples. Try to get it as even as you can, but it won't really be possible to spread the batter. Don't worry about it too much.
13. Cover and let rise for ~1 hour.
14. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
15. Bake cake at 190°C (375°F) for 20-25 minutes.
16. Immediately and carefully turn out onto a plate¹ (there will be lots of liquid).

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¹ The original recipe called for turning it out onto a cooling rack set in a rimmed baking sheet. This is what I did this time, but I think I'd just turn it out onto a plate next time. The bottom would get soggy, but it would be soggy with delicious delicious caramel and apple juice, so... I'm not really seeing the downside! ^Back