How to Make Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake! LIVE w/ Anna Olson

Recipe below! Apples make an ideal upside down cake, since they caramelize so nicely and the juice meld with the sugar syrup, making for a shiny, saucy glaze when the cake is inverted.

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Makes 1 9-inch (20 cm) cake
Serves 12

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• Ingredients •

Caramel Apple Layer:
3 apples (Granny Smith, Mutsu or similar), peeled, cored and each cut into 8 wedges
2 Tbsp (30 mL) water
1 Tbsp (15 mL) lemon juice
1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (60 g) unsalted butter

Cake:
¼ cup (60 g) unsalted butter at room temperature
½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
½ cup (100 g) packed dark brown sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature, separated
1/3 cup (80 mL) sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups (187 g) all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp salt

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• Directions •
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease a 9-inch (23 cm) cake pan and place it on a parchment-lined baking tray.

2. For the caramel apple layer, arrange the apples tightly together in the bottom of the prepared pan. Pour the water and lemon juice into a small saucepot, and then add the sugar. Bring this mixture to a boil without stirring and continue to boil, occasionally brushing the sides of the pot down with water, until it is a rich caramel color, about 5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat, whisk in the butter until melted and pour the caramel over the apples, coating them as much as possible (but don’t worry if they are not completely coated). Set aside while preparing the cake.

3. Beat the butter, sugar and brown sugar together. Add the egg yolks, sour cream and vanilla and beat until blended.

4. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and stir this into the butter mixture.

5. In another bowl, whip the 4 egg whites until they hold a soft peak and fold them into the cake batter in 2 additions. Scrape the batter overtop of the apples and spread evenly.

6. Bake the cake for about 45 minutes, until a tester inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 30 minutes. Run a knife around the inside edge of the cake pan and place a serving plate overtop the pan. Flip the cake over and lift the pan off, revealing the caramel apple top.

Well hello everyone and I am almost live we were all set to do a live stream YouTube’s live streams went down but we’ve got the power to record so this is getting to you almost live so I welcome even though we don’t have an opportunity to chat I welcome your comments below

And I’ll go in over the next couple of days and check and answer any questions so today’s recipe is a caramel apple UPS side down cake and I’m really excited about it for the main reason is that just moments ago I pulled my cake out of the oven this is

The one I’m going to flip and show you so it takes 45 minutes to bake and then you have to let it cool for half an hour in order for the cake not to break the caramel to settle into place so you will get a beautiful reveal but I wanted to

Let you know that the kitchen smells fantastic so for all of you who regularly catch my live streams hello Bonnie and Suzanne and Esme and Lori and Kathy I’m so glad and Mom of course I’m so glad you could join me and I’m going to get right to

The recipe which starts with of course making caramel this is an upside down cake and usually you would make a butter brown sugar mixture if you making sort of a traditional pineapple upside down cake but I am actually caramel izing sugar and that is the syrup at the

Bottom of this cake recipe so it’s kind of like apple taret meets a cake whenever I caramelize sugar I put my water in my pot and I’m putting in a little lemon juice that helps keep the sugar liquefied as it’s cooking and caramelizing I put the water in first so

Then the sugar immediately starts dissolving as you can see there now I’ll take this over to my burner over high heat and I’ll give it a little tap of extra water in the middle so it dissolves this will probably take about 6 minutes to caramelize when you’re caramelizing sugar you don’t want to

Stir the sugar because you don’t want sugar droplets to hit the side of the pot because if they hit the side of the pot away from the heat they cool and they’re at risk of crystallizing it at that point and sugar crystals are just like frost even though here in Southern

Ontario in Canada we’re starting to say goodbye to Winter you don’t want those frost-like crystals because when you have one piece of Crystal another will stick to it and it grows and grows and grows and spreads and that’s how your sugar might crystallize and seize up so the key is

To always have a little brush with some just room temperature water on hand and and if you see your sugar bubbling up and hitting the sides you can give it a little brush you don’t stick your brush right in the sugar just let that water flow from the brush down

The pot but really you shouldn’t have to attend to it too much I’m just getting a little bit of bubbles so I will turn away and take a peek at it every now and again but there are a couple of elements to this upside down cake so first I’ve

Got the caramel at the bottom next will be the apples and then I will make the cake batter that goes on top and all these flavors match and merry together so beautifully I’ve got a regular 9in 23 cm cake pan here I have greased it bottom and sides and I’ve lined the

Bottom with parchment paper this isn’t a syrupy sticky cake um that creates its own syrup when you turn it out the apples absorb that caramelized sugar so I like the parchment at the bottom of the the paper just to make tipping it out so much simpler now let’s talk about

The apples for a second as I take a look at my sugar it’s coming along well I’ve already peeled corded and wedged my apples and I want to talk about apples because it’s March and if you’re in the southern hemisphere you’re just entering into fall so it’s time to talk about

Apple desserts here in the northern hemisphere we’re entering into spring so it’s talking about using up those last apples of the seasons before we say hello to the the new seasonal fresh fruit these are Mutu apples um it’s a lovely yellow green apple um they’re found across Canada sometimes they’re

Sold as Crispen um your equivalent no matter where you are I think Granny Smith apples are available pretty much everywhere a granny smith apple is the ideal it’s tart it holds its shape and that’s what you want in your Apple for this cake recipe I peeled and CED these apples

About an hour ago so they’re just starting to discolor now but you know I don’t worry about it because of course I’m pouring caramel on top of this so normally you would think oh well the syrup goes in the pan first and then the apples but I actually want the apples to

Go in the pan first and then I’ll pour the caramel on top of them so I’ll arrange them closely together and it depends on the size of your Apple you may need two you may need three sometimes Granny Smiths can be a little small in which case you want three mutus

Are a generously proportioned Apple they are one of my favorite apples for apple pie there we go so all in a single layer so that way when you turn the cake upside down or right side up I should say you’ll see those apples so I’ll just

Set that aside for a second and take another look at my sugar see how it’s coming along Michael has set up a stove cam so we’re catching a look at that Michael yes and just a reminder this is an a an almost live stream I’m baking for you

Live today YouTube didn’t want anyone to broadcast live this evening they’re having their technical diff difficulties but we’ll post you’ll see this video and I’ll keep an eye on the comments so at least we can interact because that’s what I love about these live streams all right I’m not developing any color and

You can really go when you know you’re starting to get close to your sugar caramelizing you can see that your bubbles the sugar Bubbles as it boils away they start to look bigger that’s because the sugar is starting to thicken and hold in the air as it’s boiling and

So you know you’re getting a little close and I also can tell by the hiss when I start adding the water and it really starts to sizzle I know soon I’ll be getting my sugar taking on color so in the meantime I think I have about 1

Minute before that Sugar starts to turn so I’m going to separate my eggs because this cake recipe calls for whipped egg whites folded into the batter so my whites I’m going to whip first if you’re using a uh electric beaters you can make your cake base first and whip your egg whites

Afterwards if you wish but I am not going to step aside to wash dishes so I’m going to take care of the egg whites first there we go and multitasking I’m starting to get a little caramel color are you on the sauce can you keep an eye

On that caramelized sugar for me Michael oh thank you so this recipe calls for four eggs I think do I have enough time for I do one more egg white and then I’ll pull that caramelized sugar off the heat music oh I know no kidding getting color all right it’s coming off the

Heat now I’ve got my 60 G of butter ready because look at that beautiful amber color and it smells fantastic oh and you add your butter a little at a time and this is going to start cooling down the sugar so it’ll stop cooking and this is you’re making a butter caramel

Sauce of course if we were live right now I know someone would be typing could I add sea salt to that and the answer would be 100% yes you could but whenever you’re making a confection when you’re cooking sugar you always add your salt at the very end because salt can

Interfere with the candying process so it gets added at the very end don’t stick your finger in there no do not and as much as kids love caramel making caramel is not a kids activity you got to let it cool it is caramelized sugar is about 310 to

340° Fahrenheit that’s how hot it is and look at that beautiful butter caramel and now I’ll bring my pan of apples back and you don’t when you’re pouring the caramel on top don’t expect the caramel to fully cover the apples but now those apples the juices

Are going to cook out as this cake bakes and liquefy that caramel a little further and then some of it absorbs into the cake so you get that beautiful sort of spongy syrupy top layer to this cake and then a more defined cake layer underneath so I’ll set this aside to

Cool my hand just stuck to the pot there actually no let’s keep looking at it right now well I whip my four egg whites so I’m not adding any sugar to my egg whites and I’m going to whip them to a soft Peak they will not look like a big

Pillowy mering because there’s no added sugar and when you’re whipping egg whites without sugar they hit a soft Peak a lot faster of course my egg whites are at room temperature which allows them to reach a higher volume a lot faster um and room temperature egg whites are very

Important in the case that you are adding sugar to your egg whites so that the sugar can dissolve liquefy and give your egg whites that volume in structure see it really doesn’t take long for those egg whites to whip up when there’s no sugar I think just so I don’t spill I’m

Going to move my apples out of the way let’s take a little peek here so it looks frothy you can see large and small air bubbles but I do have a bit of volume and structure I’m going to give this another 15 seconds there we go it is rare that you

Will ever see a cake recipe call for egg whites whipped when the egg whites are folded into a batter it’s rare you’ll see a recipe call for them whipped to stiff peak that is typically only for mering that are going to be baked or used on their own um because the point

Of whipping the egg whites is to help give your cakes volume before the days of baking powder and baking soda this was really all you had um and so you need those egg whites need room and space to grow so I’ll set these aside I’ve got a lot of parts to this

Recipe but yet it’s one cake ultimately your time for this recipe isn’t too long if you get everything organized first and start in that order have your apples ready make your car caramel whip your egg whites and now for the cake base which is actually the final part of the recipe so

I have my unsalted butter and because I’m playing on the caramel flavor I’ve got a combination of dark brown sugar I’m using demarara sugar here and I’m using granulated so equal amounts and I can anticipate that someone would ask could I use all brown sugar in this recipe you could but I

Would reduce it by about 25 Gams because you’re adding extra moisture if you’re using a demera style sugar um and it could make the cake just a little bit too heavy so now I’m going to cream my butter and sugar together because of the small amount of butter in

This cake base don’t forget I put 60 G of butter or 1/4 cup in the caramel so that’s going to cook into the cake so I didn’t need a whole lot of butter in the cake base itself so you’ll find this won’t turn out to be creamy initially

I will add my little bit of vanilla and now I’ll add those egg yolks from the whites I separated and in addition to that I’m going to add a bit of sour cream this really the tanginess of the sour cream against the sweetness of the

Caramel and then the T fru of the apples you need the liquid in there you could use buttermilk I know sour cream isn’t available everywhere um if you use a full fat yogurt and I’ll be honest when I was making my recipe I didn’t realize

I was low on sour cream so this is actually half yogurt and half sour cream and it works absolutely fine in this recipe and this is quite fluid at this point I’ll just give my mixer a little scrape just to make sure everything’s nice and smooth looking good and now to sift the

Dry ingredients my flour just allpurpose flour and someone when we were trying to go live and I was just that’s not sifting my flour is it uh I need you I miss you you keep me in check um when we were chatting when we were trying to go

Live but weren’t able to someone asked um how do I substitute self-raising flour with all-purpose flour and what I do for every one cup or 150 grams of allpurpose flour uh or sorry self-raising flour I used the same measure of allpurpose and I had three4 of a teaspoon of baking powder and I

Find that generally works you can add a pinch of salt too but I find proportionately for most cake recipes um that the the balance comes out fine so I’ve got my flour almost sifted and now I’m going to add my baking powder a little bit of salt and

Then I’m adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to really just play on that caramel apple flavor if you wanted to use a spice mix like a pumpkin pumpkin spice blend that would be absolutely fine whatever you like in your apple pie I they add it here all right now on low speed I’ll

Just add this to my mixer if you’re using electric beers just do the same thing gentle swirling motion with the beeters as you add your flour you can also add this by hand if you Want and you’ll mix this just until it’s combined thanks Michael okay so now that I’ve got the dry ingredients combined I’ll just finish doing it by hand and I’ll take a moment and get the mixer out of the way there we go if this ends up being a

Big hit and you like this format we end may end up coming up with our own different series Almost live quasi live yes baking almost live with Anna it does feel odd to not have you here to talk to um but just as a reminder I will be

Keeping an eye on the chat thread that follows underneath the recipe you know I always Supply the full recipe it’s right below the screen so you can see it’s quite this apple cake has quite a thick batter to it right now and of course it’ll be lightened with

The egg whites but when when you make an upside down cake you actually don’t want a batter that’s too runny because it can then run down and seep underneath the fruit and then the fruit gets picked up into the cake and that’s definitely something we don’t want to happen so

These egg whites even though they were whipped to a lovely soft Peak you will find once they’ve sat for a few minutes they’ll sort of set up a little bit just let them be don’t re-whip them don’t try and deflate them and whip them again just you work with them but the because

There is no sugar you will find they collapse in the cake batter and the that first edition of egg whites is always your sacrificial Edition you expect those egg whites to deflate fully but don’t worry they’ve got volume memory and they will expand again within the battery it also makes

The batter a little easier to handle so now when I add the remaining whites these will work in more easily and if you’ve watched my cake videos before that involve folding egg whites you know I would rather you go faster and a little less gently than to

Too gently and too slow because time is actually your enemy here more than anything else okay so I no longer see any white streaks except for that one there we go goodbye and I’ll bring my pan back with the apples and you can see there’s a little bit of juice but the

Caramel it’s soft it’s cooled down a bit that you can touch it because of the butter but it’s it hasn’t solidified and now the batter goes on Top all right my neighbor Bonnie Bonnie I know you’re watching always get a part of what I make so that’s why I’m always careful you want to scrape your bowl and then just Loosely spread this it will level itself as it bakes there we go and this goes into a

350 oven and it takes 45 minutes think of all the juices from that the apples underneath plus the caramel Sal sauce SAU they’re liquefying cooking and then that’s producing steam that’s adding moisture to this cake um and so it takes a lot longer to bake if you’ve ever made

An apple pie an apple pie spends a good hour in the oven for the same reason so I just want to give you I’m going to pop this in the oven but show you that side by side can we see that in the overhead shot so you can see how the cake really

Does come up nicely to the top of the pan if you’re nervous about the height of your pan or if you have a lot of apples you can put your cake pan on a baking tray cuz you don’t want to be cleaning caramel sauce from the bottom of your oven in this

Goes and now it’s time to flip this now cooled cake it’s been about half an hour hasn’t it Michael yes good good good good and I’m just going to make sure the cake is loosened around the sides you don’t have to grease and flour this pan

Well you don’t want to cuz you have the caramel sauce at the bottom and unlike a tarte tan which has so many apples that liquefy and produce the syrup the cake absorbs the syrup so I don’t find this is risky to flip over it’s not juicy but it will have that syrup glossiness

Beautiful and the parchment stayed in the pan and I do find you you’ve seen the the thumbnail image it always does that I get that beautiful sort of ombre look where it’s super caramelized around the edges and cook just so in the center so those apples are nice and tender there’s

Steam coming off of this and I can smell the caramel and the cinnamon let me cut a slice so you can see the inside says the girl who just really wants a slice of cake and Michael would you like a slice should I cut one for you oh I’m fine but

Thank you you sure okay I’m I totally want all right one for me and one for Michael it’s fruit yes and I do find because of the apples this cake stays moist for a couple of days it’s just oh look at that so you’ve got the apples cooked through that sweet

Caramel L layer but it’s not overly sweet and it’s balanced with the cake itself this would be delicious with a scoop of ice cream or however you take your apple pie is anyone a fan of a slice of cheddar cheese with their apple pie do you like cheddar with your apple

Pie Michael my father had every piece of apple pie in his life with a piece of your dad did but I don’t know that I’ve seen you eat a oh yeah okay that’s yours Michael I’ll just pass it down to you now a lovely bite it’s a just the

Think about it that all that fruit at the bottom is steaming the cake so it has not a putting consistency but it really has a nice moisture to it oh I look forward to seeing the questions and notes because this almost live stream um is It’s always important for me to

Connect to you so I welcome you to write your comments I’ll keep revisiting the video as you you know you you can watch it at your leisure now because it’s not live anymore um but I’ll answer your questions I thank you for your support for new viewers welcome to the OEM

Channel I’ve got lots of new content in planned rolling out over the entire spring actually but next up will be a live stream Tuesday March what s today’s the 5th so so the 12th yes Tuesday March 12th at 6 p.m I am making my oh decadent lemon squares a few of you have

Requested a lemon square recipe a few of you have also requested sugar-free desserts I have this recipe I have tested traditional the way I created it and I have verified that it can be made sugar-free so you have to join me on March 12th for my creamiest dreamiest

Loveliest lemon squares but first a bite of caramel apple cake and I thank you for joining me and I’ll see you again soon thanks for coming to O yum and watching some Deliciousness mhm caramel first Boom the Apple hits you and then you get the cinnamon cake look good Cake