TWD: Plum Upside-Down Chiffon Cake

Tuesdays with Dorie baking through Baking with Julia
by Dorie Greenspan

                              















This week's (well, last week's - I'm late) recipe was Nectarine Upside-Down Chiffon Cake. The recipe was contributed by baker Mary Bergin. As you can see from the title of my post, I substituted plums for the nectarines.

This was a pretty straight forward, relatively simple cake to make. Reading my fellow bloggers comments about their experience making this cake, several mentioned it did not bake in the alloted time frame. I set the timer for the maximum time given in the recipe, at which time it started to give off a burnt smell. Usually I can tell by the scent of a cake when it is done; however there was no wonderful aroma permeating my kitchen like I am used to when I bake a cake.

After flipping the cake out of the pan, it showed no signs of burning - whew. It also smelled really good and I was looking forward to serving and devouring this creation. The crumbs from the pan had great flavor, which gave me high hopes for this cake.

Unfortunately this cake was not a hit for me or for the girls as I can tell. It certainly looked pretty, but was just OK. I was hoping for more of a WOW factor. I made this for girls night, and though everyone ate their slice, there was no rave reviews I normally receive for my desserts.

Success meter (1-3): 2

Plums and pluots.

Oh so pretty!

The fruit is layered on top of a brown sugar butter mixture.

The streusel filling.

The scent was reminiscent of...

something I know...

I just can't place it.

Something tasty.

Ready for toasting!

I do believe the center collapsing is normal.

To even out the cake, I placed parchment paper over

the cake, and used a bottom of a springform pan

to press the edges even with the center.

Whoala!

The cake released with no problems.

The drippings tasted so good...

Beautiful!

Even though the batter rearranged the slices somewhat.

The neighborhood crows.

For the recipe, visit this week's hosts: 

Marlise of The Double Trouble Kitchen

and

Susan of The Little French Bakery

To see other takes on this cake go to the LYL page over at Tuesdays with Dorie

for links to all the bakers that attempted this dessert.