Home › Seven Weeks' Menus › Upside-down Prune Cake
Upside-down Prune Cake
3 tablespoons shortening 1 cup brown sugar 1/3 cup nut meats 2 cups cooked prunes, pitted 1 egg, well beaten 1 cup sugar 1 cup flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup prune juice 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 teaspoon lemon Melt shortening in large frying pan, spread the brown sugar evenly over this, then nut meats and pitted prunes. Beat the egg, add sugar and beat until very light. Add flour, baking powder and salt, sifted together, alternately with the prune juice. Add flavoring. Cover the prunes with the batter and bake in a moderate oven (375 degrees F.) for 40 minutes. Turn from frying pan onto large plate and serve with whipped cream, or hard sauce. Serves 10.
An upside-down cake built in the skillet it bakes in, using stewed prunes and their liquid in place of the more familiar pineapple. The batter is a hot-milk-style sponge with no fat of its own, so it depends on a well-beaten egg for lift.
- The pan must go in the oven"Large frying pan" here means a heavy cast-iron skillet, roughly 10 inches across, that can move from burner to oven. A modern nonstick or plastic-handled pan will not survive 375F.
- OvenThe recipe helpfully gives the number for its "moderate oven": 375F. Bake the stated 40 minutes, until the centre springs back and a tester comes out clean.
- Prune juiceMost likely the cooking liquid from the stewed prunes rather than bottled prune juice. Stew dried pitted prunes in water until plump -- enough to yield the 2 cups of cooked prunes called for, rather less than 2 cups dry -- drain, and reserve half a cup of the liquid; top up with water if you are short.
- "1/4 teaspoon lemon"Lemon extract, matching the vanilla above it. Grated zest from half a lemon works as well and tastes fresher.
- ShorteningAny solid vegetable shortening or butter, melted in the skillet, is fine. It mainly keeps the brown sugar from welding itself to the iron, and enriches the caramel as it forms.
- The two sugars are not interchangeableThe cup of brown sugar goes in the pan with the shortening to form the caramel topping; the cup of white sugar is beaten with the egg into the batter. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together as directed.
- Turn it out hotInvert onto the serving plate within two or three minutes of leaving the oven. Let the caramel set in the pan and it will glue the prunes down; if a few stay behind, lift them back onto the cake.
- YieldTen small servings from a 10-inch skillet, which is generous for a sponge this thin. Whipped cream is the lighter choice; hard sauce, being creamed butter and sugar, makes it a much richer dessert.