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