How To Make an Upside-Down Cake with Almost Any Fruit

Surely everyone is familiar with the classic pineapple upside-down cake, topped with rings of canned pineapple and dotted with neon-red maraschino cherries, all nestled in a brown sugar glaze. What many people don’t know is that nearly any fruit can be subbed in for the pineapple-cherry combo with fresh, delicious results. Read on for our basic recipe for making upside-down cakes with fresh fruits all year long!

Developed sometime around the turn of the last century, when canned pineapple was invented, the pineapple upside-down cake is a classic American cake that has probably passed the peak of its popularity. It’s true that tastes have changed over the last 100 years and things like canned pineapple and maraschino cherries aren’t as popular they once were, but the upside-down cake, with its buttery brown sugar glaze balanced by the simple white cake below, still holds a lot of appeal.

These days, many people make the cake with pineapple, only they may use fresh fruit or leave off the day-glo maraschino cherries. I personally like the canned pineapple version enough, but really love it when fresh pineapple is used. However, my favorite way to reinvent this cake is to use fresh or frozen seasonal fruit, and if I’m feeling really creative, some chopped fresh herbs.

This cake lends itself towards any fruit that cooks up well, which is any fruit you’d make a pie with. The cake pictured here is made with strawberries and rhubarb. Here are a few more of my favorites:

• Peaches
• Nectarines
• Fresh cherries
• Berries
• Apples
• Pears
• Bananas
• Mangos
• Apricots
• Figs

I suppose you could even use citrus like oranges, grapefruit, and lemons, although I haven’t tried it so I can’t be certain. Plums are good if they’re not too ripe and juicy.

Finely chopped herbs such as basil or lemon thyme are another more updated addition. Peaches and nectarines are great with basil, and lemon thyme is delicious with just about anything. Mint would work with almost any fruit as well, and rosemary would be perfect with figs. Spices such as cinnamon would be good for the fall versions of this cake when fresh apples, persimmons, or pears would be a natural choice.

Fresh fruit is great, but frozen fruit works as well, so don’t hesitate to use it. The only thing you want to be careful about is not using fruit that has been stored in juice or syrup. You want unsweetened, individual pieces — and be sure that they are still frozen when adding them to the topping before baking, as they are easier to handle that way.

This basic recipe for upside-down cake uses less sugar than the classic recipe, which can have up to one cup of brown sugar and a whole stick of butter for the topping alone. I find that using less butter and sugar really allows the taste of the fruit to come through. Don’t worry — you will still have a sticky, decadent topping!

Another classic method is to make the cake in a cast iron skillet. The only downside to this is if your cast iron skillet has been heavily seasoned using savory foods like onions and garlic, because those flavors can sometimes transfer to the sweet cake. But if you don’t think this will be an issue, or if you have a skillet that is reserved for sweet dishes, then by all means use it.

The amount of prepared fruit needed for the topping is roughly two to three cups. The reason why this is a rough number is that fruit measures differently, depending on how it is cut. A cup of blueberries will be much different than a cup of sliced apples, for instance. What you want is at least a single layer of fruit covering the bottom of the pan, although you can let it pile up a little, too. It’s good to really crowd the pan, as the fruit will shrink some when cooking.

The cake needs to be removed from the pan shortly after it has been taken from the oven or the fruit will stick. This can be a little tricky, as the fruit and brown sugar topping is still quite hot and can burn. I do this by placing the cake straight from the oven onto a cooling rack. As soon as the fruit has stopped bubbling (about one minute), I place a cake plate over the cake and, using hot pads, pick up the rack, cake, and cake plate. Holding all three firmly, in one motion I flip over to invert the cake. I set the whole stack down on the counter and remove the rack and then carefully remove the cake pan. There will be hot steam from the fruit, so use caution! This is an instance where a skillet is a good choice, as the handle makes it easy to remove.