Exciting news! My cookbook, A Dish for All Seasons is available for preorder wherever books are sold! 🎉 I am so excited to share it with you. Preorders are a huge help to new authors, so if you reserve a copy, please do message me so that I can thank you. 😊
This book flips the script on seasonal cooking. It’s made up of adaptable base recipes, like frittatas, grain bowls, and (you guessed it!) upside-down cakes. You can adapt each base recipe to feature whatever produce you’ve got. And each one comes with four beautiful seasonal variations.
So go to the market without a plan and just see what inspires you. Or choose a recipe and rest assured that you’ll actually be able to find the ingredients. (I mean, ever gone to the store hoping to find persimmons in spring or good tomatoes in late fall? Just me?).
For instance, here are the four seasonal upside-down cake recipes (pictured above):
- chocolate apricot raspberry cake (summer)
- fig semolina honey cake (fall)
- pineapple gingerbread cake (winter)
- strawberry rhubarb chocolate cake (spring)
Or if you don’t feel like following a recipe, you could come up with something else entirely. Like this cinnamon plum cake! Or a cherry chocolate cake *or* semolina peach cake *or* vanilla blueberry cake, or really whatever’s on your mind! Just use the seasonal produce charts and base recipe, and you’re all set.
Since I make so many things over and over again while recipe testing, I never like making the same thing more than once when I’m just cooking for fun. So instead of making one of the seasonal variations from the book, I thought I’d have fun using the base recipe to make something totally new.
I love the combination of cinnamon and plums, which work beautifully in this upside-down plum cake. I tweaked the cake batter a little to incorporate olive oil instead of butter, and brown sugar instead of granulated. Plums are on their way out of season here in Australia, but you should start seeing them in supermarkets in the northern hemisphere in the next couple weeks. Eek! Very exciting.
Anyway, hope you enjoy this one, or reserve a copy of A Dish for All Seasons and make your own upside-down cake, or your own whatever! And if you do, let me know what you come up with!
upside-down plum cake
adapted from A Dish for All Seasons
Ingredients
For the fruit:
- 3 Tbsp [40 g] extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup [100 g] dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 3 cups [300 g] 1/2-inch thick plum slices
For the batter:
- 1 1/2 cups [195 g] all purpose flour
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 large eggs
- 3 Tbsp [40 g] extra virgin olive oil
- 3/4 cup [150 g] dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup [60 g] milk
- 1/4 cup [60 g] plain, unstrained yogurt*
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F [180°C]. Butter a 9 in [23 cm] round cake pan. Cover the bottom with a parchment round.
- Prep the fruit: Combine the olive oil, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a small mixing bowl. Stir together until completely combined. Pour into the prepared cake pan. Use an offset spatula to spread everything out evenly until the bottom is covered. Arrange the plums in a single layer over the buttery brown sugar. Set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs and olive oil together until very well incorporated. Then add the brown sugar, milk, and yogurt, and beat to combine well.
- Pour the wet mixture over the dry mixture and stir together just until everything is combined. It won’t be completely smooth, and there might be some tiny lumps; this is completely fine. Don’t overmix!
- Carefully pour the batter over the plums, smooth out the top a little bit with a spatula, and bake for about 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes in the cake pan. Then trace around the edge with a butter knife to make sure it’s loosened from the pan. Invert onto a serving plate, let cool for at least 30 minutes more, and serve.
Notes
* In A Dish for All Seasons, I use buttermilk, which you can use here in place of the yogurt and milk (just use 1/2 cup [120 g] buttermilk in place of both).
I just made this for a second time. The first time the flavour was great but the batter was on the dry side and tough to smooth over the fruit. It was almost glue-y. I had the same issue again – flavour good, topping dry. I compared the ratios of flour to buttermilk with other similar recipes and yours seems to be short on liquid. Not by a lot but enough to make the end result a little disappointing.
It may need adjusting.
★★★★
Hi Emily! So the batter is supposed to be a bit thicker than your average cake batter—if it was less thick, it would end up soggy from all the liquid the fruit gives off. But *gluey* is definitely not what you want, so it sounds like something went wrong. Did you use a digital scale? That can make a really big difference in getting the proportions just right. Another thing that comes to mind—did you use just regular plain yogurt or *Greek* yogurt? Greek yogurt has been strained, so it has a lot less moisture, and that can also make a really big difference in the final texture.
I didn’t try out this cake, BUT i wanna say thank you for your recipes! I got a lot of compliments for my cooking because you sharing this great ideas. I definitely will order your cookbook, since it’s available in germany 🥳. Can’t wait to try out more 🤗
Aw thank you so much for your support!! Hope you get a chance to build your *own* upside-down cake once you receive the book. It’s so fun getting creative with it!
This was great! The color was beautiful and taste great and I loved the use of olive oil instead of butter (especially just coming from Lebanon).
Yay I’m so glad you enjoyed it!! It’s been so fun coming up with further variations to the recipes from my book and posting them here. I’m so curious if anyone will try out a cross-over recipe, using this batter + the upside-down base recipe from the book! I’ve been getting more into olive oil baking lately too, so it was really fun coming up with this one.
Hi Katherine, So excited about your cookbook, I pre-ordered it a couple weeks ago. I have enjoyed reading, cooking and getting inspired by your blog. Thank you!
Aw thank you so much!! That seriously means the world to me!