Peach 'N Prune Upside Down Cake

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Recipe by Sugaripe Fruit 1953

Easy and elegant!  

Hmmm... Not if you follow Sugaripe's instructions.

Look at my sad little cake.

As you can see my version is certainly not as elegant as the one in the original.  I studied the photo before starting and thought those prunes looked a little too perfect, floating on the top of the cake.  Even the peaches seem un-engulfed by the heavy cake batter that was sitting on their heads in a 350 degree oven.  But I proceeded anyway trying to push my skepticism aside.  When I plated this cake, I was bummed (but not surprised) to see that all of the prunes had stuck to the bottom of the baking dish (along with about 30% of the brown sugar/butter mixture).   I then had to pry and scrape, piecing the top of the cake back together into something presentable.   There is just no way the original cake was baked with the fruits in place on the bottom.  What to do? I would recommend not placing the prunes on the cake until after it is baked.  As for the peaches, I wonder if the original baker did a switcharoo on us.  I think they baked the cake with surrogate peaches in place to have their curved divots made.  Then they replaced the pre-made divots with new pretty peaches (these may have even been slightly baked with some brown sugar)  along with placing those perfect looking prunes along side.  Those cake misrepresenting bastards.

That may be just a little bit too much work though for upside down cake picture perfection.  On the taste side, this cake is really dense and delicious in the peachy parts!  I wasn't digging the prune bits.

Recipe

I have made several recipes, mostly mishaps, involving upside down dishes. Things are always sticking to the bottom of the pan or falling apart completely.  But when it turns out (literally turns out) looking picture perfect it's very gratifying!

Check out these past upside-downers:
Spam Upside Down Pie
Super Goober Cake

and uppers:
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Golden Treasure Upside Down Cake