It’s the final installment of our ‘one cake three ways’ series and we’re finishing up with a sticky upside down cake. There’s a warm caramel-y layer, studded with sticky medjool dates and a thick coconut cake made by just slightly tweaking our base snack cake recipe.
And in case you missed our first two renditions, I’ll link them for you below!
ingredient changes
The biggest ingredient tweak that I made in this week’s recipe was the addition of an ‘upside down’ layer. I cooked brown sugar and butter into a caramel and then poured it in the bottom of a prepared cake pan. Then, I arranged a layer of pitted and sliced medjool dates into the warm caramel. (You could easily swap the dates for thinly sliced pineapple rings or sliced peaches or nectarines.) I’ve made upside down cakes like this countless times and this time, I wasn’t paying attention and pulled my caramel from the heat too soon. It’s important for the sugar to dissolve completely before pulling the caramel or you’ll be left with less of a silky caramel layer and more of a crunchy brown sugar layer.
For the cake itself, we again just made substitutions for fat (melted coconut oil for flavor) and liquid (buttermilk for tenderness). I also added some pulsed coconut to the flour to up the coconut flavor and added a few warming spices to complement the dates.
method changes
I couldn’t help myself and decided to try a completely different mixing method for this cake as well. A few months ago, I made a coconut pound cake from Jason Schrieber’s book Fruit Cake where the entire batter was mixed in the food processor. Because I already had my food processor out to shred coconut, I decided to give it a whirl again in an effort to create a dense, moist cake layer and it worked perfectly. After pulsing the coconut, I simply added all my dry ingredients (sugar included) to the bowl of the food processor and then streamed in the melted coconut oil in something akin to the reverse creaming method. I then blended in the eggs and vanilla (and began second-guessing my methodology as it clumped together like a cookie dough), before streaming in the buttermilk. When the buttermilk was added and the batter mixed, it was silky and smooth. Trust the process here! The result was a tighter, but ultra-soft crumb.
Overall, this is a really great simple, end-of-summer cake that lends itself well to being served warm, tucked under a pile of vanilla ice cream.
sticky date upside down cake
makes one 9” cake
Ingredients:
for the sticky date layer:
100 g (1/2 cup) brown sugar
28 g (2 tbsp) unsalted butter
16 medjool dates (about 250 g) pitted and sliced open
for the cake:
25 g (1/2 cup) shredded coconut
250 g (2 cups) all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground coriander
100 g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
54 g (1/4 cup) brown sugar
113 g (1/2 cup) melted coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
226 g (1 cup) buttermilk
Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 350° F and coat a 9” round cake pan with butter and line with a parchment paper circle.
In a small saucepan, combine the 100 g of brown sugar with the butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until sugar is dissolved and caramel is homogenized and smooth. Pour the hot caramel into the prepared pan and tilt to cover the bottom and arrange the dates on top. Set aside.
In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade, pulse the shredded coconut until finely ground. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, coriander, sugar, and brown sugar and pulse once or twice more just to combine.
With the food processor running, stream in the melted coconut oil, mixing until it resembles bread crumbs.
Add the eggs and vanilla and continue mixing about 30 seconds more. With the food processor running, gradually stream in the buttermilk. Continue mixing for another few seconds, just until everything is smooth.
Pour the cake batter over the dates and caramel and bake for 40-45 minutes, until the cake is deeply browned and the center springs back when touched. Let the cake cool almost completely in the pan before sliding a knife around the edges and inverting it onto a serving plate.
Serve warm with ice cream.