Food Porn 3 – Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

Experimental GF baking continues. The chocolate chip cookies baked into a single 9 by 13 cookie that had to be carved into squares for eating; they were crisp and delicious, however, so I will try them again, with adjustments to try and keep them from glomming onto each other in the oven. They tasted good frozen as well, because sometimes I just won’t wait.

I’ve always been averse to pastry—too fussy, too finicky, blah blah blah, though my wee sister can’t see my problem with it. Easy for her to say. She’s a master, as she proved with my Christmas mincemeat dilemma last year. Whining aside, I’ve discovered a local source for GF baking, so butter tarts are back on the menu. So is pizza, thanks to thin and crispy crusts being available at the grocery store. Ter and I load ’em up with toppings and pig out on Friday nights.

A work buddy who is also gluten-free (most of the time) uses regular recipes and simply substitutes GF flour for all purpose. She also defies the experts by matching amounts one for one, rather than reducing the flour by one eighth. I was originally scandalized by such wanton disregard, since surely the amounts are doctored for a reason, but she merely shrugged and said, hey, it works. Not with muffins, though; she still can’t figure out why they turned out like hockey pucks, to which I reply, don’t they always?

Last week, cake became an issue. Bored with tarts and cookies, I pored over my special needs baking book in search of a simple recipe and didn’t find what I wanted. Then I remembered the upside-down cake recipe I snipped from a supermarket flyer a couple of years ago. It calls for rhubarb, but I’ve also made it with peaches or pineapple, and it’s fabulous. I’d been eyeballing a couple of apples that were approaching their best before date, and thought they’d make a dandy bottom—or top, as the cake may be.

Bracing myself for the baking gods’ wrath, I took my reckless friend’s advice and substituted measure for measure GF flour for AP. With my able kitchen elf’s assistance, I made the caramel apple upside down cake pictured above and it turned out great! Light and tender with good crumb texture and those sweet, sticky apples on top … yum!

There is a downside to it, though. The first bite is generally the best of any food item. Not so with gluten-free. Lovely as my cake turned out, the first bite was purely weird. Rice flour has a distinctive flavour and if you’re not expecting it, the surprise is not a pleasant one. So persevere and go for the second bite. I promise you, it gets better. I ate two pieces before my sugar tolerance shut me down, else I’d have porked the whole thing in one sitting.

Fortunately, it also freezes well.