Apricot Upside Down Olive Oil Cake by Rachel

My parents are in town and when they came to visit my apartment they brought over some beautiful smelling apricots with them.  I'm not a big fan of eating plain apricots- I personally prefer peaches when it comes to eating straight fruit, but apricots are great for baking.  They become a little more tart and tangy after some time in the oven which makes them great for cakes and pies!

I've never made an upside down cake before, but I love how moist fresh fruit can be on top of those cakes so that's what brought me here!

The story with the olive oil is an interesting one.  Recently a little bakery opened near my apartment and the lady that owns the bakery had lived in Italy for some time.  She's imported the olive oil from that little town into her bakery and my fiance brought a liter home.  It smells amazing and has a slight spicy flavor. I thought it would be great with my apricots.  I hope you do, too!  See the recipe below.

Ingredients

Topping
3 tbsp unsalted butter
2-3 fresh apricots, washed, dried and cut into wedges
1/4 cup light brown sugar

Cake
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
3 tbsp good, strong olive oil
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract



- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

- Heat the 3 tbsp of butter in a skillet on low heat and once all the butter is melted, add in the brown sugar.  Stir in the sugar then let it sit and melt on the stove.  Once the sugar is melted into the butter, remove it from the heat and pour it into the base of the loaf pan.

- Spread the brown sugar glaze evenly on the bottom of the pan.  Let it cool, then line the bottom with the slice apricots and set aside.

- In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and the stick of butter together until the butter turns a very light yellow color.

- Add in one egg at a time, allowing each egg to incorporate completely before adding the next one.

- Add in the olive oil while the mixer is going.

- In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder and salt.

- Add the dry ingredients into the butter mixture 1/2 cup at a time allowing the mixture to stay creamy and smooth.



- Once all the dry ingredients are in, add in the vanilla extract and mix until incorporated.

- Carefully spoon the cake batter on top of the arranged apricots.  Smooth the top of the batter and bang the filled loaf pan against the counter to remove the air bubbles before placing it into the oven.

- Bake for about 35-40 minutes.  Remove the cake from the pan immediately before the fruit at the bottom becomes sticky.  Turn the cake over and VOILA! An upside down cake :)

The cake comes out like a light pound cake.  So YUMMY.  Great with some whipped cream or a little extra drizzle of olive oil before serving.  Enjoy!