Upside Down

Some of you may recall my previous adventure with upside down cake. For those who do not, let's just say it was an adventure of the smoky, burning variety. Following my recent acquisition of my very own artisan (that's the fanciest one) kitchenaid standing mixer, I found myself inspired to redeem myself before the upside down cake gods. Kitchie is subletting a corner in my parents' kitchen, obliging me to concoct this cake in their residence. Lucky for me, they had a ripe mango just waiting to be experimented upon. I have made and tasted a variety of different upside down cakes, including pineapple, plum and apricot, and, I thought to myself, why should mango be any different? I requested permission from my father to use this mango in my endeavor.

"A mango upside down cake?" He asked dubiously. "You just made that up, didn't you."

"No!" I lied, unconvincingly.

He sighed. "Very well. Knock yourself out." I complied.

Based on some ongoing criticisms of my failure to follow exact recipes (and my lack of pineapple upside down cake recipe ingredients), I looked up a mango specific upside down cake recipe. This is not to say that I followed it to a tee (I did not), but I tried! Here's what happened:

Mango Upside Down Cake

adapted from Epicurious.com

Ingredients:

Top part:

- 1 mango (or two if you have a generous father)

- 1/2 stick butter, unsalted

- 1/2 cup sugar (preferably brown, but if your mother only stocks white sugar that will suffice in a pinch)

Cake part:

- 1 1/2 cups flour

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1/4 tsp salt

- 1 stick butter, softened and unsalted

- 1 cup sugar (white)

- 3 eggs

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/2 cup orange juice (recipe called for mango nectar... if I knew that this was and how to procure it and were not lazy, I certainly would have used this, probably for a more delicious outcome. Orange juice, however, did the trick)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Make top part of the cake. Peel the mango and slice pieces off. Try not to eat it all. Melt the butter and sugar together in a small saucepan for about 1-2 minutes, or a little more if your sugar doesn't want to incorporate nicely. Pour the mixture into a greased round cake pan (9x2 inches, or something like it). Arrange mango slices on top of the mixture.

 

In a liquid cup measure or a small bowl, mix together the flour, b.p. and salt. Prepare your kitchenaid (if you have one. If not, I'm so sorry for you). Cream together the softened butter and sugar until very fluffy. Add one egg whole, and add the yolks of the other two. Reserve the whites in another bowl. Add the vanilla and beat until all combined. Next, use your fancy spill-prevention attachment to add half the flour mixture. Continue beating on low speed (don't overbeat your cake!). Pour in the orange or whatever juice and mix, then add the rest of the flour. Beat until all is just combined.

In the separate bowl, whisk the eggs whites until they reach stiff peaks. Once they are stiff, fold the whites into the cake batter. Be gentle. Pour the fluffy, pale batter over the mago slices and topping. Place cake in the oven and bake for about 1 hour. Lovingly wipe all the flour and batter of your kitchenaid.

Once the cake is done, serve it to your parents so they will support you going to baking school. Then have them go out of town so you can invite your friends over and feed them the cake so they will keep being your friends. One love.