Plum-Nectarine Upside-Down Skillet Cake

Author Notes

I'd add this cake, adapted from Food & Wine's Plum-Brown Sugar Upside-Down Cake to my list of must-bake summer desserts, which is expanding at a troubling rate. It's the kind that will help you cling to the season for the dear life, the kind you'll spend most of the winter and spring longing for.

It's humble, simple, and good—and you'll have enough time to get out of the kitchen, frolic outside, and eat cake, too.

First, the caramel. Instead of making a true caramel sauce, you make a lazy-bones version: Melt butter in the bottom of an oven-safe skillet, then sprinkle brown sugar and sliced almonds on top. The heat of the oven will do the work of caramelization, no stirring required.

Next, the fruit, which is also treated simply: Slice your favorite stone fruit (nectarines, plums, pluots, apricots, apriplums?) into wedges and arrange them as rustically or fancifully as you'd like (the almonds will cover up any mishaps, anyhow).

The cake has no spices or infusions, relying instead on the ripe sweetness of late-summer fruit, lemon zest, the pleasant tang of buttermilk, and a bit of vanilla and almond extracts. The juices from the fruit run into the sugar and butter below as the cake bakes; and then, when you invert it onto a serving platter, it drips back into the tender cake beneath it, serving double duty.

A few recipe notes:

- If you don't like almond flavor, or you want a nut-free cake, feel free to omit both the nuts and the extract.
- But keep the lemon zest! The cake benefits from the bright acidity it adds.
- It's tempting to let your cake cool completely in the pan, but you do want to turn it out while it's still warm—otherwise, the caramel layer will adhere to your pan as it cools and hardens.
- If you swap in different types of stone fruit, you'll want to make sure you're using around 2 pounds. —Sarah Jampel