Butter and Sugar and Fruit, Oh My

One of the best flavors going is that butterscotchy melding of butter and brown sugar. I love butterscotch, I love caramel, I love toffee. And I love what happens when you add fruit to the mix. A tarte tatin is basically apples in butter/brown sugar, baked under a pastry crust. And upside-down cakes are fruit in butter/brown sugar, baked under a blanket of cake. In either case, you flip the thing over and end up with delectable gooey fruit on top of baked perfection.

It's rhubarb season; I made a rhubarb upside down cake last weekend. It's an easy cake, and adaptable. The recipe came from epicurious - I fiddled with it, changing the spices, using yogurt in place of buttermilk. [Small buttermilk rant: why does it only come in quarts? I only ever want a half cup at a time, and then all the rest goes bad. Hence, the use of yogurt herein.] And I had the time to make a fussy basketweave pattern with the cut rhubarb, but it would have been fine in a tight single messy layer instead.

Ice cream or whipped cream would be nice, but not necessary. And if there are leftovers, it makes a perfect breakfast.

---

Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

Topping
½ stick (¼ cup) butter
¾ cup brown sugar
3 cups rhubarb, cut in 1” pieces

Cake
½ teaspoon cinnamon and/or ground ginger
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
½ t. salt
1 stick (½ cup) butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
½ t. vanilla
2 large eggs
½ cup yogurt
¼ cup milk

Topping: Melt butter in a well-seasoned 9 or 10” cast-iron skillet. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over bottom of skillet and heat, undisturbed, 3 minutes. Don’t worry if it’s not all melted. Remove skillet from heat. Arrange rhubarb (rounded sides down) in one layer over brown sugar. A basketweave pattern is pretty.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cake: Mix cinnamon/ginger, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl. Stir milk into yogurt to thin it out. Beat butter and sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs and beat well. With mixer on low speed add flour mixture alternately in batches with yogurt/milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating until just combined (do not overbeat). Spoon batter over rhubarb in skillet, spreading as well as you can without disturbing the rhubarb, and bake until golden, about 45 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.

Cool cake in skillet on a rack 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the skillet and invert a plate over skillet. Keeping plate and skillet firmly pressed together, invert cake onto plate. Carefully remove skillet and serve warm or at room temperature.