Upside Down Apple Honey Cake

It’s finally apple season here in PA and I couldn’t wait to start baking and enjoy fresh, crisp apples from our local orchard. I picked up a basket this past weekend to get us through until we can get to pick our own…plus it’s still warm here and the bees will be out in full force. We’re going to wait until it’s feeling a little more like fall before we go picking. In the meantime, I threw together this delicious and sweet upside down apple honey cake for this month’s Fantastical Food Fight. This month’s theme was honey … so many possibilities, but I decided to go with dessert.

The cake is moist and packed with cinnamon-sugar apple pieces and then topped with a honey pecan sauce that brings this cake to a whole new level of deliciousness!

Honey Sauce:
1/2 cup honey
5 Tbsp coconut oil, room temperature
2 Tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

Cake:
1 cup plus 6 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
3/4 cup coconut palm sugar
2 Tbsp orange juice
1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 1/4 cup chopped and peeled apples
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp raw sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom and sides of a round cake pan with parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, combine the sauce ingredients. Warm in the microwave for 30 seconds and then add the chopped pecans. Pour the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan and place in the refrigerator until ready to assemble the rest of the cake.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, combine the melted coconut oil, sugar, orange juice, vanilla and eggs. In a separate bowl, coat the apple pieces with cinnamon and sugar. Add the dry cake ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until just combined. Remove the pan from the refrigerator and place a thin layer of the batter down. Add a layer of the cinnamon-sugar apples, then add the remaining layer of cake batter and finish with the remaining apple pieces.

Bake for 50 minutes or until the cake is lightly browned. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Allow to cook for 10 minutes before inverting onto a serving plate. As the cake cools, it will become denser and much easier to cute. Cover and store at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Check out all the other delicious honey recipes in this month’s Fantastical Food Fight in the link below: