It's finally fall. This is positively my favorite time of year! We have been craving pumpkin around here for a while. I began imagining something apple-y and pumpkin-y that was born into reality as an upside down cake. This is super moist. The sugar caramelizes on the apples and then soaks in to the cake...doesn't get any better than this.
Ingredients:
1/3 cup butter
2-3 small, tart apples cut in half, cores scooped out with a melon-baller or spoon and sliced thinly
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
One 15-ounce can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup buttermilk (sub. 1/2 tsp. lemon juice and fill rest of the way with milk up to 1/2 cup measurement)
Preheat the oven to 325F. Cut the butter into a bunt pan, and place the pan in the oven, until the butter melts. Then, take the pan out again and pour in the brown sugar, stirring it around until mixed. Lay your apple slices around the pan, overlapping them slightly, making a ring shape.
Put the pan back in the oven to start baking the apples. Then, begin work on your batter. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, nutmeg and cloves.
In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the brown sugar and eggs at medium-high speed until fluffy, 3 minutes. Beat in the oil, then beat in the pumpkin puree. Alternating with butter and egg mixture in three additions, mix everything into the flour mixture, stirring until just combined.
Carefully pour the batter into the bunt pan, being sure that it spreads out evenly. Cook in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until the cake no longer wobbles when you giggle the pan.
Flip out directly onto your serving plate as soon as it comes out of the oven, and carefully pull the pan off. Tada! Serve warm, with lots of ice cream.
