Upside Down Peach Cake with Apricot Beer Syrup • My Evil Twin's Kitchen (2024)

Looks like beer has been driving my food inspirations quite a lot lately; What can I say, I really love me a good microbrewery beer and it seems that each and every time I drink one, I get all kinds of delicious culinary creations taking life in my mind…

The thing is, though, find it kind of counter-intuitive to come up with recipes that call for my favorite local beers: I figure they have to be kind of hard — if not impossible — for you to get your hands on wherever it is that you live! Take this Upside Down Peach Cake with Apricot Beer Syrup, for instance. I made it using a lovely triple apricot beer that my favorite local joint (is there even have another establishment that I truly like?) brews once a year. Especially hard to get your hands on it at that rate, I agree.

There is hope, however. After all, I wouldn’t be sharing a recipe with you if you had no means of duplicating it! I figured that if you weren’t able to get that particular beer, you could very well use any other kind of apricot beer that you can find locally. I’ve even tested it with 3 different kinds of apricot beer, just to make sure!

Also too, if you weren’t too big on the idea of using beer in your syrup — you should totally give it a try, though… it’s very interesting to say the least!— you could just as well sub the same amout of pure peach or apricot juice, or even apple juice for it.

Likewise, I chose to use peaches for my fruit layer because they were in season and went well with the particular beer that I wanted to work with, but those too you could super easily replace by something that would be more in season, or more to your liking! I’m thinking apples, apricots, pears, mangoes, pineapple, blueberries, figs, oranges even! Just choose your weapon – there are just way too many options to list them all!And then, use whatever liquid would work best with the fruit that you chose: apple juice, pear juice, pineapple juice… you get the idea!

At the moment of writing these lines, I’m toying with the idea of creating a banana version with a brown sugar, butter and rum sauce… In fact, I might very well test it the minute I’m done writing this post!

But let’s focus on this one for now, what say you? Because trust me, this Upside Down Peach Cake totally deserves its moment in the sun!

TO MAKE THE APRICOT BEER SAUCE

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat; add sugar, then beer (or your choice of juice), vanilla extract and salt.

Bring to a simmer over medium heat and then continue to simmer for 5 minutes or until the sauce comes together and gets slightly thicker. Keep warm.

TO MAKE THE PEACH LAYER

Preheat your oven to 350°F; Line the bottom of a9” springform panwithparchment paper. To do that, remove the ring and cover the bottom withparchment paper. Fold the excess paper back under the plate and, while holding it in place with one hand, put the ring back in its position with the other hand. Bring the excess paper back from under the pan but do not cut it off.

Arrange the peach slices in concentric circles around the bottom of the pan.

Top the peach slices with dollops of butter and then sprinkle with the sugar. Set aside.

TO MAKE THE CAKE BATTER

The cake batter was borrowed from my Maple Bourbon Walnut Cake, so I took took the liberty to grab a couple of pictures from the post to illustrate how to make it. Forfull detailed instructions and pictures, please refer to that other post.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl. Mix well with a whisk until fluffy and thoroughly combined.In a large glass measuring cup, combine the sour cream, buttermilk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.

In a separate, larger mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition until light and creamy.

Add half the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until barely just incorporated, then pour in half the buttermilk mixture and resume mixing on low speed until combined. Repeat with the rest of the dry ingredients, then buttermilk, mixing just until combined each time. Do not overmix.

Delicately pour the batter over the reserved peach layer. Be careful not to disturb the peaches!

Spread the batter all the way to the edge and smooth the top as evenly as you can; bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

ASSEMBLY

Once the cake is done baking, take it out of the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes.

See why you want to line with the parchment paper? These pans, they always leak, no matter what…

Now using a long wooden skewer, poke all kind of holes all over the cake, going as deep as you can.

Pour about 1/3 of the reserved hot apricot beer syrup over the entire top of the cake and then put the cake in the fridge to cool for about an hour.

Next, remove the ring from the pan, carefully invert the cake onto a rimmed cake plate or stand and peel off the parchment paper.

Then, slowly drizzle another 1/3 of the syrup over the peaches, allowing the sauce soak right into the cake.

If you want to, make your cake super pretty by garnishing it with a handful of fresh peach slices, a few mint leaves and a generous sprinkle of sparkling sugar.

This cake is best served warm, topped with a little more of the apricot beer syrup; Any potential leftovers are best stored in the refrigerator for up to a week – reheat in the microwave for a few seconds, if desired.