Caramelised apricot and ricotta upside-down cake
- Published: 15 Jul 16
- Updated: 18 Mar 24
Upside-down is the right way up with this easy cake recipe – caramelised apricots and a moist ricotta sponge are a match that can’t be faulted.
Did you know that we have plenty more upside-down cake recipes where that came from? Try one with bananas, pineapple or this stunning Arabian Nights variation.
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Serves 12
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Hands-on time 30 min, oven time 70 min, plus cooling
Ingredients
For the topping
- 2 x 420g tins apricot halves in light syrup, drained and 75ml syrup reserved
- 80g unsalted butter
- 100g light brown sugar
For the ricotta sponge
- 250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 400g ricotta, at room temperature
- 400g caster sugar
- 4 free-range medium eggs, beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Finely grated zest 1 lemon
- 350g plain flour
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- Crème fraîche to serve
You’ll also need…
- 23cm diameter cake tin, greased
Method
- Heat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan/gas 5. Blot the apricot halves dry with kitchen paper. Gently melt the butter in a small saucepan over a medium heat, then beat in the sugar with a wooden spoon for 1-2 minutes until the mixture has emulsified. Pour into the cake tin, then place the apricots on top, cut-side down, until they fill the bottom of the tin (you may have leftover apricots).
- To make the sponge, beat the butter, ricotta and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until combined. Beat in the eggs, little by little, then beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.
- Combine the flour, baking powder and bicarb in a bowl, then whisk into the wet ingredients to form a smooth batter. Pour over the apricots and level with a spatula. Bake for 70 minutes (put a baking tray on the rack below to catch any drips) or until golden and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean.
- Near the end of the cooking time, warm the reserved apricot syrup in a small pan. Once out of the oven, poke holes into the top of the cake using a skewer, then immediately drizzle the syrup over the top. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and invert onto a wire rack to cool. Serve with a dollop of crème fraîche.
- Recipe from June 2016 Issue
Nutrition
- Calories
- 557kcals
- Fat
- 28.5g (17.3g saturated)
- Protein
- 8.8g
- Carbohydrates
- 65.8g (49.4g sugars)
- Fibre
- 1.2g
- Salt
- 0.7g
delicious. tips
Tinned apricots are better than fresh for this recipe, as the sugar syrup they’re kept in helps to caramelise them more thoroughly.
The butter and ricotta should be at the same temperature or they won’t mix together well (step 2).
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Yes this does make a BIG cake. What I would like to ask though is why does this cake use plain flour with baking powder AND bicarb? Pineapple upside down uses Victoria sandwich mixture. Please can anyone explain? thanks.
This recipes uses a ricotta cake mixture, that gives a tangy lemon flavour with more of a squidgy texture. You could make a classic recipe using the ratios for a Victoria sponge, absolutely. Delicious for pudding with custard. Here’s a classic recipe from our archives https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/pineapple-upside-down-cake/
Very nice cake. But far too much dough.