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Apple Upside Down Cake
A beautifully rich dessert with deep caramelised apples and a hint of Calvados (apple brandy). The cake is moist, buttery, and perfectly balanced between sweetness and gentle boozy warmth — wonderful served warm with crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream.
Cooking surfaces
BBQ Temperature
Ingredients
Topping
- 50g butter
- 100g light brown sugar
- 2 tbsp Calvados or brandy
- 2 large apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
Cake
- 100g soft light brown sugar
- 100g butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp milk
- 175g self-raising flour
- Pinch of salt
Method
- Set up your Big Green Egg for an indirect cook at 180°C. To do this you’ll need to put in your ConvEGGtor feet up, stainless steel grid on top and a baking stone on top of that.
- In a frying pan, melt the butter and sugar for the topping. Cook until the sugar dissolves, the caramel will be bubbly and golden.
- Be careful as you add the calvados/brandy as the caramel will spit and simmer for 1 minute.
- Pour the caramel into a lined 20 cm tin and arrange apple slices neatly over it.
- Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in eggs, vanilla, and milk. I usually add a tbsp of flour when I add any liquid to stop the mixture from curdling.
- Fold in the remaining flour and salt until combined.
- Spoon the mixture gently over the apples.
- Bake for 40 to 45 minutes at 180°C. We set the time for 35 minutes but it wasn’t quite ready so we baked for a further 10 minutes and it was perfect.
- You can now either use a skewer to see if it comes out clean when poked into the cake, or my preferred method, use a Thermapen to check if the internal temperature is 95°C.
- Place a cooling rack for 5 minutes.
- Then carefully invert the cake onto a serving plate bigger than the tin). Remove the parchment paper.
- Serve warm with créme fraîche or ice cream.
Tips:
- Ensure the caramel isn’t overcooked — it should be amber, not dark brown.
- Use firm apples like Braeburn or Pink Lady for best texture.
- I greased the side of the tin with butter and flour before lining the bottom of the tin with parchment paper. I used the tin as a guide by drawing round it. I thin cut the circle about 3cm bigger so that I could then cut from the edge to the line of the circle, again about every 3cm. This ensured that once I had lined the tine there was some paper coming up the sides to stop the caramel from leaking during the cook.








