What We Do Eat: Apricot Upside-Down Cake

I missed apricot season last year.  And cherry season too.  We spent the spring in northern Louisiana and then the summer back in Los Angeles, and a whole season got lost in the shuffle.  I am now very much making up for it. 

This time of year, and really any one of those magical times where one season is becoming the next, leaves me giddy.  I wander through the Hollywood Farmers Market in a haze of strawberry smells and tomato slices on tooth picks, pulling me one way and then the other.  I have no plan, but to buy any fruit or vegetable that looks delicious and elusive.  I'll figure out what to do with them later, and I do.  I buy morels, and then make pasta with fresh peas and lemon cashew cream.  And then some melon too, just to eat.  I spend most of our weekly food budget and don't feel at all bad.  It's important that the boy know that peas don't grow in freezer bags.   

I unpack the long beans and ginger and rhubarb and get to my most precious plunder - the net bag of tiny blushing blenheim apricots that I picked out of the almost empty black crate next to the mulberries.  With great hope, I lift one out of the bag, run it under cool water, and split it in half.  It is perfect.  Just perfectly apricot.   

I get out the bowl of very pretty, big ones that I bought in Torrance on Tuesday that did not live up to their apricot promise, cut them in half and get them ready for cake, making room in the fridge for all of the more authentic representatives of late spring and early summer (or the ones that manage to survive the day - as it turns out, I am not the only appreciator of perfect apricots in our house and those precious little fuzzy orbs are gone before the week begins.  Good thing there's a neighbor down the street with a lawn and side walk littered with them.  The ones on the sidewalk rarely have bug holes.  We walk this way often.)

Apricot Upside-Down Cake
Adapted from Gourmet, July 2003, via Epicurious

topping:
1/2 c. sugar
1 t. black strap molasses (Or skip this and go with 1/2 c. brown sugar)
3 T. butter (Earth Balance Vegan Stick)
about 8 large apricots 

cake:
1 T. vinegar
3/4 c. soy milk
2 T. flax meal
6 T. water
1 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. white whole wheat flour (if you don't have it, use more all-purpose, don't use regular whole wheat)
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 c. butter (Earth Balance Vegan Stick)
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 t. almond extract

Heat the oven to 375. 

Make topping: 
In an 8-inch cast iron skillet, melt butter.  Mix together the sugar and molasses, and add to the butter in the pan.  Stir.  Cook for about 1 minute, until sugar is mostly melted.  Slice the apricots in half and arrange in pan cut-side down.  Remove from heat.

Make cake batter:
Pour the tablespoon vinegar into a glass measuring cup and add enough soy milk to make 3/4 cup.  Stir with a fork and set aside until thickened.  (i.e. make non-dairy buttermilk)

In a very small bowl, stir together the flax meal and water.  Set aside to thicken.  

In a small bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, soda, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butters, sugar, and extracts until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).

Give the flax mixture a quick stir, and add half of it to the butter and sugar.  Beat to incorporate.  Add the other half, and continue beating until the mixture is light in color and doubled in volume (about 2 minutes). 

Alternate stirring in the buttermilk and dry ingredients, starting and ending with the dry mix.  Stir in 1/3 of the dry, then 1/2 the buttermilk, and so on.  (Don't over-mix this part!)

Assemble the cake:
Pour batter over fruit in skillet.  Smooth with a rubber spatula.  And bake for 40 - 45 minutes at 375 until a tooth pick comes out clean.  Immediately invert onto a plate.  

Serve warm, or cool.  (Either way, you'll want to eat this.)

Happy Apricot Season!  Apart from eating them immediately, what's your favorite way to enjoy an apricot?