AFTERNOON CAKE/(APRICOT) SKILLET UPSIDE DOWN CAKE — Small Victories
My plum tree is doing its thing, so I sort of mashed these two recipes together, essentially just turning the Afternoon Cake into an upside down cake, with plums instead of apricots. The topping part of the apricot upside down cake (aka the part of the recipe I sort-of used) is bog standard: butter, brown sugar, a bit of salt, and sliced fruit. Only I didn’t follow her instructions to butter the sides of the cast iron skillet, then work together room temp butter and brown sugar and spread it over the bottom of the skillet, which seemed like unnecessary busy work for a vessel that goes on the stove. Instead, I melted the butter in the skillet, brushed it around the pan and added the brown sugar to the bottom. The afternoon cake batter, I made as written, using almond flour for the nuts and a dash of almond extract in addition to the vanilla.
This made a lovely cake: moist, just the right sweetness with the topping (since the afternoon cake doesn’t have a lot of sugar), and flavorful. It was nice the day it was baked, but better the following day, when the flavor was more developed as is usual with almond cakes, and everyone loved it.
