New York Times Cooking app is one of my favorite cooking tools. A recent post featured an Upside-Down Berry Cake that caught my immediate attention since Pineapple Upside-Down Cake is a nostalgic favorite. 

I love reminiscing about helping my mom place the maraschino cherries between the pineapple rounds!

This NY Times cake recipe has the most moist and delicious batter I’ve ever tasted. 

Of course, I had to play with the caramel component by adding our Bourbon Smoked Sea Salt Caramel for the first layer.  

I heated the caramel to a low boil for about 5 minutes to reduce it but probably could have skipped the reduction.  

Our end product was a delicious success and had my family going back for seconds.  

This dessert will be made again and again.

Since upside-down cakes are fun and easy, and since I love “playing” with recipes, our family started brainstorming other tweaks to this beloved standard.  

One of the thoughts we had was to infuse the baked cake with an artesian flavored balsamic vinegar. The creativity was overflowing and required us to stop by Marisolio Tasting Bar in Murphys for sips, confirmation and inspired new ideas.  

Roberta, the owner Marisolio jumped in immediately with Cara Cara Orange Balsamic for the Berry Cake – which immediately made our mouths water as she described the Cara Cara Orange flavor

Here are some upside-down cake ideas we came up with:

• Sliced Peach with Bourbon Smoked Sugar
• Cherry & Almonds with Bourbon Chocolate Sauce, cinnamon, clove and black pepper
• Pecan with Pumpkin Spice Balsamic and Alice’s Apple Pie Spice
• Pecan and Apple with Pumpkin Spice Balsamic, Vanilla Bean and Alice’s Apple Pie Spice
• Apple with Bourbon Smoked Sugar and Alice’s Apple Pie Spice

Again, the upside-down cake palette is so open to creativity.  

I started pondering the savory side of the recipe, which simply means excluding the sugar and adding spices, oils and veggies.  

My first thought immediately went to a mushroom upside-down cake. If you know me, you know I love mushrooms.

This dish must have sauteed onions which with the mushrooms would be the first layer.  

In the batter, I substituted the sugar with our Truffle Parmesan Black Garlic Seasoning.   

You could also try Smoked Peppercorn Sage, Calaveras Chicken Rub, Za’atar or Herbes de Provence.  

I would recommend the following olive oils from Marisolio to try: Wild Mushroom & Sage, Tuscan Herb, Ginger & Black Garlic or any of their natural olive oils. You honestly can’t go wrong with these artesian olive oils. 

While playing around with this recipe and researching, I discovered a savory upside-down cake recipe in NY Times: Spiced Maqluba with Tomatoes and Tahini Sauce.  

Maqluba is a Middle Eastern savory cake made with veggies, chicken, and rice.  

Caramelized tomatoes and onions are the base topped with lentils, rice and parsley. Spiced with cardamom, allspice, turmeric, and garlic enhance the flavors giving this dish an umami flavoring that Jan and I honestly could not stop eating.  

Oh, so delicious!

I hope my blog has inspired you to create and update the nostalgic upside-down pineapple cake. 

The possibilities are endless. 

Bon Appetit!