Upside Down Apples and Figues Cake

I go thru life as a clutz, i can stumble on my own two feet on flat ground, i managed to get toothpaste in my eye one time (which is a painfull experience, believe me!) or bump into a furniture for the 10th time, though it hasn't moved in years.

It is no different in my kitchen, even if i know it and try to be carefull, i'm clumsy and that's the way it is. When doing the carrot cake recipe for instance, i ended up grating a bit of my thumb while grating the carrots.

I don't count the cuts and burns anymore, and just try to have band-aid and cream nearby. But there is one burn on my forearm that i remember, although it's a couple of years old: it's my caramel burn. Not only did it really hurt, but it still shows. I guess it's my amateur baker's scar.

Ever since, i really dislike making caramel, but sometimes, we just have to face our fears. Some recipes require the extra carefullness needed, this one is part of it. In the spirit of the "tarte tatin", this cake is done in reverse.
What's good about it is that you can choose the fruits you like, do your own caramel version, aswell as the cake batter that can be a different one if you prefer.

Now i managed to do this one without any injuries, which is quite an achievement! I felt so confident about myself, that i ended up ordering something for my kitchen, that i wanted for a long time: a mandoline. Now this will hopefully be part of the future recipes posted here, but not part of my future injuries.

Upside Down Apples and Figues Cake

For one 35x25cm cake tin

2 Apples
2 Figues
3 Eggs
150gr of Flour
200gr of Sugar
150gr of Butter, room temperatured
2 Teaspoon of Backing Powder
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Mix all the flour with the backing powder and 100gr of the sugar in a bowl, add the eggs one after the other and whisk them in.
Add 100gr of the butter and if possible, use an electric whisk to combine it well and in the end add the vanilla extract.

In the tray that will go into the oven, give the rest of the sugar (100gr) and of the butter (50gr). Put that on a medium flame to make it into a caramel, stay around it can change very fast. Set aside when it's done.

Cut your apples and figues into slices and place them on the caramel. Spread the cake batter on top of that evenly.
Put into the oven for about 30 minutes, the cake should be golden and you might see the caramel bubbling on the edges.

When you take it out of the oven, i'd advice you to invert on your serving plate immediatly, because if you wait a little too long it will be hard to get it out of the tin.

Serve just like that or with vanilla ice cream for instance.