Upside-Down One-Bowl Apple Cake

Three years ago, my sister made a phenomenal upside-down apple cake for Thanksgiving.  My entire family fell in love with it and I insisted that she give me the recipe. Since then, I have made this cake every year and usually after our fall apple picking.  This past Saturday, despite the glorious summer-like weather, Bret and I went wine tasting and apple picking with our friends, Adam and Sarah, at Nashoba Valley Winery. 

We came home with lots of apples and like clockwork, I got to work on the Upside-Down One-Bowl Apple Cake on Sunday morning.

First, I gathered my ingredients:

1/3 cup butter, cut up
6 very small red cooking apples (1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pound total) (I used 6 small Cortland apples)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar)
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2/3 cup milk (I used skim milk)
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla (I omitted this ingredient since I was all out!)

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  Placed the 1/3 cup butter in a rectangular baking pan. 

I put the butter in the oven for about three minutes, until the butter was melted.  While the butter was melting, I halved, de-stemmed and cored all of the apples.

I took the pan out of the even and sprinkled the brown sugar over the melted butter.  I stirred to combine it.  I then arranged nine of the apple halves, cut side down, in the butter mixture. 

I let the apples bake for about fifteen minutes until the butter mixture was bubbling.

While the apples were baking, I peeled and finely chopped the remaining three apple halves.  The original recipe calls for shredding the apples but over the years, I've found that chopping the apples works just fine and is a lot easier.

In a large bowl, I mixed all of the remaining dry ingredients together.  I then added the chopped apple, milk, softened butter and egg to the bowl.  I beat the batter with a hand mixer for about a minute until the ingredients were combined.

I spooned the batter into the pan and spread it evenly over the apple halves.  Some of the apple halves were still exposed and some of the butter mixture came to the surface.

I baked the cake for thirty-five minutes and toothpick-tested the cake.  I let the cake cool for about five minutes in the pan. 

Using a sharp knife, I loosened the cake edges from the sides of the baking pan.  I inverted the cake onto a large cutting board.  I let the cake cool down for over an hour while Bret and I went for a Sunday morning hike at Harold Parker State Forest.  When we came back, the cake was definitely cool!

I gently wrapped the cake with plastic wrap and brought it along for a day on Meghan and Eric's boat.  The cake was super moist and not too sweet.  While this cake is great served warm with ice cream, we all definitely enjoyed it on an unusually warm October day out on the water.

I'm looking forward to baking up some more delicious treats with our fresh-picked apples!  Tell me, what are some of your favorite fall apple dishes?