Nectarine Upside Down Cake is as beautiful to look at as it is to eat.
This is that time of year when the stone fruits literally call to me.
I can’t resist the heavenly smell of ripe nectarines, peaches, apricots and plums.
Orange, rosy red and deep purple fruits fill my grocery basket.
Dazed by their beauty, I go home with more fruit than I can ever eat.
Cutting up juicy nectarines for my breakfast of yogurt and honey, I dream of more delicious ways to CELEBRATE this golden fruit.
Make Nectarine Upside Down Cake in a deep pie plate or an eight or nine inch cake pan.
Arrange slices in a circular pattern or just toss in the fruit for a free form look.
Other stone fruits or combinations to try:
- peaches and plums
- apricots and blueberries
- pluots and raspberries.
Different citrus: Use lime or orange instead of lemon juice/ zest.
Lighter cake: Replace sour cream with low or no fat greek yogurt.
After stone fruit season: use (slightly defrosted) frozen peaches.
I have not tried this cake with dairy or gluten free substitutions, but if you do, let me know how it turns out.
While this cake has a few more ingredients than my usual recipes, it takes just thirty EASY minutes to prep and comes out incredibly tender, moist and scrumptious.
In case you missed them, check out these reader favorite cake recipes:
Spread the fruit and spread the love.
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PrintNectarine Upside Down Cake
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 50 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 mins
- Yield: 16 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: American
Spread the fruit and spread the love with this old fashioned Nectarine Upside Down Cake. Substitute your favorite stone fruit or fruit combination: peaches and plums, apricots and blueberries, pluots and raspberries.
Ingredients
- 11 tablespoons butter or vegan butter, room temperature (150 gm)
- 4 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar (50 gm)
- kosher salt
- 1 1b fresh nectarines or stone fruit, pitted, skinned and cut into 4-6 pieces per fruit (16 oz/480 gm)
- (or up to one pound fresh fruit mixture)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (7.5 oz/ 225 gm)
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 cup sour cream (250 gm)
- zest and juice of 1 large lemon
- 2 1/4 cups cake flour (260 gm) (or substitute 2 cups sifted (224 gm) all-purpose flour)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder (5 gm)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda (6 gm)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter or spray the sides and bottom of a deep pie plate or cake pan (8 or 9″ round) and line with parchment paper. (Parchment paper is optional but it’s easier to remove cake from pan.)
- Make the fruity bottom layer: In a small bowl, use your hands to combine 3 tablespoons soft butter with the brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt. Spread the mixture on the bottom of your pie or cake pan and set aside.
- Place sliced nectarines in one layer on top of the butter/brown sugar mixture. Arrange in a circular pattern (see blog) or just free form.
- To make cake batter, use an electric mixer or rubber spatula to combine the remaining 8 tablespoons soft butter with granulated sugar and beat until smooth.
- Add in eggs, one at a time and vanilla. Mix well.
- Add in sour cream, lemon juice and zest; mix well.
- In a separate bowl, stir with a fork: flour, baking powder, baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt.
- Add flour mixture in 3 installments to the wet batter. Mix slowly and gently with as few strokes as possible, just until the last bits of flour disappear.
- Pour half of the batter over the nectarines, allowing a minute for batter to settle over fruit. Add in remaining batter and tap pan gently two or three times to level batter. Smooth top with a rubber or offset spatula.
- Bake 40 -50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of just the cake (not all the way down to the nectarines) comes out clean.
- Keep on oven light and check cake for doneness early. Cake is ready when golden and the top springs back when touched.
- Let cool in pan at least 20 minutes or longer before flipping.
- If you did not use parchment paper, use a butter knife to loosen the cake from the pan.
- To flip, put a serving plate on top of the cooled cake, pick up the cake pan and carefully but quickly turn the pan upside down onto the plate.
- Remove the parchment or any loose bits of fruit from the pan and put them back on top of the cake.
- Serve warm or room temperature with ice cream or whipped topping.
- This cake will last up to three days in the refrigerator.
- For prettier slices, freeze before slicing. Let cake cool, invert, wrap loosely with plastic wrap and freeze for a few hours or overnight.
- Slice frozen cake and rewrap with plastic until ready to serve.
Notes
Inspired by Apricot Upside Down Skillet Cake,
from Small Victories by Julia Turshen and
Cinnamon – Pecan Coffee Cake by Eunice Gerard
For variations and helpful photos, see blog post.
This looks ridiculously good! I love summer fruits!
Thanks Laura- it’s absolutely addictive!
I made another one last week with blueberries on the bottom – ridiculously pretty and yummy too! Enjoy and share a photo #diginwithdana if you make it!?
Great blog, good read and informative.
★★★★★
Something went wrong. I followed this recipe to a “t” but it didn’t get cooked in the middle. This calls for a tsp of baking soda; that seemed a bit much to me but I didn’t change that amount. Also the recipe calls for an 8” or 8” cake pan; I used an 8”; maybe that was the problem. With a 9” pan, the batter would have been more spread out and baked properly. Or if I’d used a Bundt pan, the heat would have been more evenly distributed. I spooned out and discarded the uncles middle so now it looks like a Bundt cake 🙂 The cooked portion is very good.
Nancy,
I am so sorry that the cake didn’t get cooked in the middle.
It could be anything from an unreliable oven to the cake needing more time in the oven.
A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean or with just a few crumbs
for the cake to be done. If the middle is wet, cover the top with a sheet of tented foil and bake
longer. Maybe lower the heat 25 degrees until the middle gets cooked through.
Keep baking- practice makes you a better baker!
Thanks for trying this recipe.