Caramelised Upside Down Peach Cake

I had a craving. It wasn't anything bad, really! I wanted canned sliced peaches, and what do you know, I was well stocked up! In my pantry was a whopping 825g can of sliced peaches. I can't really remember why I bought such a big tin of peaches, it must have been for a party or it might just be on special at the supermarket.

Anyways, I was already planning what I was going to do with the rest of the peaches, if I were to open that huge can! I took out some recipe books, remembering reading somewhere about an upside down cake. It was actually an apricot upside down cake, but they're pretty similar anyways. After a little bit of tweaking, here's my version of it, adapted from one of the Women's Day small recipe book series.



Caramelised Upside Down Peach Cake

Ingredients

425g can of sliced peaches in syrup or juice, drained.
50g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
125g butter, chopped
1/2 cup castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon milk

Method

1. Grease a 20cm round cake tin. Melt 50g butter with brown sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Pour caramel mixture onto base of the tin, swirl it evenly so it coats the bottom of the tin.

2. Line the sliced peaches over the top of the caramel, in a nice and even circular pattern.

3. In the mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in vanilla essence and eggs one at a time. Fold through sifted flour, sour cream and milk.

4. Bake in a moderate oven (160 degrees celcius, fan force) for 40-45 minutes, or until skewer comes out clean.

5. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before overturning cake onto a cake plate. Serve warm with a dollop of fresh cream or ice cream.



The recipe calls for 125g butter in total, half of that melted for the caramel. But I find it really hard to cream 60g of butter, it all get stuck at the sides of the bowl! So I doubled the quantity of butter. Then I realised, oh crap, I didn't have any eggs! But I have duck eggs! Rich, creamy, huge duck eggs. (Why do I have duck eggs? My lovely mother in law gave them to me, freshly laid, free range duck eggs!) While rummaging through my fridge for bits and bobs, I found sour cream! Gaahhhh, why not make this dessert a triply rich and super naughty dessert. I figured the people around me need some fattening up, so I don't look too bad around them.



The cake turned out really really moist, and fluffy and rich. The gooey caramel just oozes out as I tip the cake upside down. The peaches went really well with the rest of the cake. Two thumbs up, a recipe I would keep and make again when I have a massive can of peaches.



Hah! What a naughty craving this has become!