Upside Down Cake

Two summers ago, Adrian and I were in New York visiting his friends. I have very mixed feeling about this world-famous city that I grew up getting to know through movies, news, magazines and papers. I'm not going to get much into that here. However I have to confess how disappointed I was by the quality of foods in New York. Despite the ingredients and freshness they promised, it felt like something was missing in the foods; they taste rather "mechanical".

Of the many meals we had in New York, one that we enjoyed the most was home-cook at Adrian's friend's in Manhattan. This friend of Adrian, Mark, is a self-taught cook with multi-talent: food stylist, private chef, food consultant. I felt so honored to be served by a professional cook at his own abode. Not only were we treated to delicious home-cook dinner but also intellectually stimulating conversation (his partner, Neil, is a Ph. D in Genetic Engineering). Their apartment, by the way, was the most "homely" place I've been in New York; a proper HOME.

So we were indulging in great foods and company. Just when I thought things can't get any better, Mark took out the dessert. A pan of cake. Allow me to rephrase it: cake in a cooking pan. Or shall I say skillet? That was my first gustatory experience with Peach Upside Down Cake. It totally blew my mind and I haven't stopped thinking about it since then.

One of the reasons the Peach Upside Down Cake took me by storm was the caramel - it's my personal reminisce of the Australian Sticky Date Pudding. Unlike Sticky Date Pudding, the tartness of the fruits in Mark's Peach Upside Down Cake was a heavenly contrast to the sinful melt-down of sugar and butter. You'd think it'd take me sooner than this to make the cake but it somehow took me more than 2 years to finally bake it. I have no excuses except to blame it on my just-over-1-year kitchen experience. Anyway I digress.

Pinwheel of mixed fruits.

I found the recipe by the famous American pastry chef - David Lebovitz. I literally used all the fruits that he suggested: apricot (frozen), plum, peach, dried cranberry (pre-soaked in hot water and drained), and pear. It was quite a "panful" of fruit pinwheel, in two layers. I ended up worrying about not having enough batter - it barely covered all the fruits. As I predicted, once baked some of the fruit wedges were popping out of the cake (the Down-side). I wanted to flip it over so desperately to see the bottom layer (the Upside).

The "Down-side"

It helped that we went out for a movie and it took my mind off the cake for a few hours. As soon as I got home, I flipped it. And Gosh! It's pretty!

The "Up-side"

The wedges are best served warm with either whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. The real secret is: a day-old wedge is even better than fresh.

Go here for the recipe.