Nectarine Upside-Down Graham Cake

It’s always upsetting when fresh produce begins to go. We bought some lovely nectarines at last week’s farmer’s market and sadly, due to a week of entertaining and a subsequent plethora leftovers, the nectarines sat, virtually ignored for much of the week until at one point my husband resigned them to the refrigerator. They’re not bad, just a little tired. They needed to be revived. Reinvented.

The weather has turned chilly and damp here, and the wind is now whipping off of the water, so I decided to turn my sad nectarines into a warming upside-down cake. In the spirit of maintaining some level of healthfulness – they should have been a nutritious snack, after all – I made this cake with half whole wheat graham flour. The result is a hearty, dense cake that’s not too sweet. Fruit and fiber make this a less than sinful option for breakfast or brunch.

P.S.: by the way,  just FYI – this is YankeeCook’s 100th post. Hooray! I thought of installing one of those falling confetti, ticker-tape type plugins for this page, but I decided that would just be tacky. Too horn-tooty. Anyway, I’ll be sitting on my front steps waiting for those flowers you’re sending.

Nectarine Upside-Down Graham Cake - yields 6 to 8 servings

2 T butter
2 T honey
4 nectarines, sliced
2 eggs
1/3 C canola oil
1/4 C sour cream
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 C granulated sugar
1 C white flour
1 C whole wheat graham flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place the butter at the bottom of 9 inch cake pan and allow it to melt in the oven while it pre-heats. Remove from oven. Drizzle the butter over the melted butter so that it is evenly distributed. Arrange the nectarine slices at the bottom of the pan.

In a medium size bowl, combine eggs, canola oil and sour cream. Gradually mix in sugar.

Sift flours, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Pour the batter over the nectarine slices in the cake pan.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until a wooden tooth pick comes out clean.

Allow to cool 10 minutes until the edges of the cake begin to pull away from the pan. Using a butter knife, loosen any edges that have not pulled away from the pan. Invert onto an oven proof dish.

Raise the oven heat to 500, and move a rack to the highest position. Place the inverted cake on the top rack so that the fruit caramelizes under the broiler for 5 minutes.

Remove from oven. Serve warm or cold with or without whipped cream.