Peach Upside-Down Cake

By Melissa Clark

Updated Aug. 31, 2022

Peach Upside-Down Cake
Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Total Time
1 hour, plus cooling
Rating
4(1,202)
Comments
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Upside-down cakes are easy, adaptable and beautiful no matter what kind of fruit you use. This one calls for any kind of summer stone fruit — peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums — whatever looks ripe and juicy. Caramelizing the brown sugar in a skillet before adding the fruit gives it all a particularly deep, complex flavor. Because of the moisture in the topping, you’ll need to bake this cake a little longer than other, similar butter cakes. Underbaked cake will be soggy and apt to fall apart, but an ideal result will have a well-browned surface and dark, slightly crunchy edges.

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Ingredients

Yield:1 (10-inch) cake

    For the Fruit Topping

    • 4tablespoons/56 grams unsalted butter
    • ⅓cup/71 grams light brown sugar
    • 1½teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (see Tip)
    • ¼teaspoon fine sea salt
    • 3cups sliced ripe but firm peaches, or use 3 cups sliced nectarines, plums or apricots (about 1¼ pounds before pitting)

    For the Cake

    • ½cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for greasing the pan
    • 1cup/200 grams granulated sugar
    • 1tablespoon vanilla extract
    • 1teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
    • 2large eggs, at room temperature
    • ½cup/118 milliliters sour cream or plain whole-milk yogurt
    • 1½teaspoons baking powder
    • ¾teaspoon fine sea salt
    • ¼teaspoon baking soda
    • 1½cups/195 grams all-purpose flour
Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat oven to 350 degrees.

  2. Step 2

    Make the topping: In an oven-safe 10-inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add the brown sugar, lemon juice and salt, and whisk until the brown sugar melts, 1 to 2 minutes.

  3. Step 3

    Let cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture starts to smell like caramel and darkens slightly, about 1 minute longer. (Don’t walk away or the mixture may burn.) The mixture will clump and separate, but that’s OK.

  4. Step 4

    Add fruit, gently tossing to coat with the caramel. Remove from the heat and arrange fruit into an even layer on the bottom of the skillet. Ignore any sugar clumps; they will dissolve during baking.

  5. Step 5

    Make the cake: In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, sugar, vanilla and lemon zest until thoroughly combined. Whisk in eggs, one at a time. Add sour cream and whisk until well mixed. Sprinkle in baking powder, salt and baking soda into the batter, one at a time, whisking vigorously after each addition.

  6. Step 6

    Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in flour until just incorporated. The mixture will be lumpy, but that’s OK. Don’t overmix. Scrape batter into the skillet over the fruit and spread evenly.

  7. Step 7

    Bake until surface is deeply browned all over (with darker brown edges) and the fruit is lightly bubbling around the sides of the skillet, about 35 to 45 minutes, rotating halfway through. A toothpick inserted into cake will come out clean.

  8. Step 8

    Once the cake is out of the oven, immediately run a butter knife or offset spatula around the edge of the skillet. Let sit for 10 to 15 minutes to cool slightly. Carefully invert cake into serving platter. If some fruit sticks to bottom of skillet, gently remove using offset spatula or knife and place back onto cake. Let cake cool until the fruit topping sets, at least 30 minutes to 1 hour, before serving. Cake is best served on the day it is baked.

Tip
  • Since you’ll need the lemon juice for the topping and the grated zest for the cake, it’s best to zest the lemon before you cut it and juice it.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
1,202 user ratings
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Comments

Euphemia

Good luck. Parchment paper on an upside down cake is decidedly a bad move. You'll never get the paper off, and to even have the paper compromises the shine, the beauty, the magic of the caramelized fruit and sugar. No. No parchment, no foil, nothing.

janice c

I’ve made this recipe twice in two days now—It’s that good. First time used blueberries and the second time strawberries with peaches. My cooking pan was a 10” cast-iron skillet. I had no problems getting the cake to release. I chilled it before serving with whipped cream. Two thumbs up.

Phill

I would bake this in a 9" round pan, well greased and with a round of baking parchment paper on the bottom. It would make getting the cake out of the pan a lot less iffy and result in a higher cake.

lize

I made this after having not made it in a long time and it came out great except for this slight bitter taste in the peaches. I can't figure it out! They were really good peaches...

Lu

I made this yesterday in a brand new 9-in square non-stick pan. I did not use parchment. instead of making the caramel on the stove top, I melted the butter, poured it into the bottom of the pan, and added the mixture of brown sugar, lemon zest, and salt. After reading all of the comments before I started prepping this, I upped the butter to 6 tablespoons, the brown sugar to 1/2 cup, and used all the zest from a medium-sized lemon. For the cake, I used all the juice from that lemon, and creme fraiche instead of sour cream. The cake turned out onto my serving dish beautifully, no peaches or caramel left in the pan. It was absolutely outstanding, and I will definitely make it again.

G

This was delicious and simple to assemble. I only have a 12 in cast iron skillet, so I just used a greased 9 in cake tin. It worked great, and I had no issues releasing the cake. Served with rum whipped cream!

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