When first we made the apple upside-down cake (or apple pudding if you believe the recipe title), I speculated that it would be really good with pears in it. And wouldn't you know it, some pears landed in the kitchen!
| Apple (Or Pear) Upside-Down Cake 3 tablespoons butter ¾ cup sugar, divided into ½ and ¼ cup portions ½ teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 egg 1½ cups flour (cake flour if you have it) ¾ cup milk ½ teaspoon vanilla 2 cups pared and thinly-sliced pears or tart apples (2 apples unless the apples are very big or very small)
Heat oven to 375°. Grease an 8"x12" or 9" square pan. Be sure to spray the edges and corners very well. If desired, line the bottom of the pan with paper cut to fit after you spray it. Then press the paper firmly into place, eliminating as many air bubbles as possible, and spray the top of it.
Line the bottom of the pan with a single layer of apple slices and set aside. Cream butter, ½ cup of sugar, salt, and baking powder. Beat well. Add egg and vanilla, beat until light. Alternately add the flour and milk. Sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup of sugar onto the apples in the pan. Then pour the batter on them, carefully spreading it as needed. (Batter will be thin.) Bake 20-30 minutes, or until the center of the cake springs back when gently pressed with the finger.
Ida H. Boerner, 916 Grand Avenue, Port Washington, Wisconsin. Chicago Tribune Recipe Contest, probably 1930s-1940s.
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Aren't they pretty? I think they look like fruit that a Renaissance painter would have used for a still life.
Just like last time, the only tedious part of the recipe was peeling and slicing the fruit. I didn't bother carefully nicking off every last bit of apple skin, but the pears had tough, leathery peels. I had to peel them properly. This was how I discovered that our paring knife is a waste of drawer space. I had just gotten it sharpened, so the first parings all but fell off. But before finishing the first pear, I couldn't tell if I was pushing the sharp or dull side of the blade into the fruit.
Well, now I don't need to feel guilty about ruining the blade by stripping wires. It wouldn't survive a single fruit salad.
After getting the batter into place, I realized I forgot to sprinkle the sugar into the pan. You might think that I'd simply bake the cake anyway, but I wanted that super special crispy layer on top. And so, I fished all the fruit out of the pan and tried again. Keep in mind that this recipe barely makes enough batter to cover the pan if you get it right the first time. We really needed the rubber spatula.
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| All right, let's try this again... |
Here it is with that slightly shiny sugar layer that mattered so much!
I know the lightly-battered fruit ruins the look. But despite my fumbling, this is a good recipe. Once you cut into it, you can see that the cake has a really nice texture. And it tastes just as good as the batter did (which doesn't always happen with cakes).
The pears didn't taste as different than I thought they would. They were a bit firmer than the original apples. If anything, they just tasted like fruit.
I didn't think that switching species would make so little difference. But changing fruits didn't affect how quickly the cake vanished, either.
When I was a nursing home cook, we had a resident who HATED pears and we were warned never to give her anything with pears in it, or she would dump all her food on the dining room floor. So now I am wondering whether we could have tricked her into eating this cake if we said it was apple.
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