Upside-Down Apple Maple Cornmeal Cake with Cheddar

I’ve been awfully busy with work!  There’s this (still tickets left as of this posting):

and here, where you really ought to know that the freshest seafood in Burlington appears every Thursday, and the floor and kitchen staff will smack me if I cause any more people to show up for 1/2 price locally-grown burgers every Wednesday:

and these, because these small people just seem to keep having birthdays and getting ever taller and smarter and cupcake-loving:

But no matter that I’ve had so much to do, there was the fabulous Melissa Pasanen on Facebook, posting a picture of a Caramelized Green Tomato Upside-Down Cornmeal Cake from a recipe she had picked up from a chef in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.  Holy smokes, did that look good.

What with the late blight here, I had no green tomatoes, but yes, apples galore.  And though I didn’t get that fabulous recipe, it was pretty easy to put together an apple and maple version that’s awfully homey and nice.  I made a proper upside-down cake with half of a doubled recipe, and a batch of muffins with the other.  If you too make some of it into muffins, make sure to use liners since they do tend to have the sticky maple-y apples fall right off the bottom.  I spotted Z. sucking on the parchment cupcake liner this morning at breakfast, so this doesn’t seem to be a terrible problem.

Upside-Down Apple Maple Cornmeal Cake with Cheddar
Makes 1 9″ cake, or 12 muffins

1. Position rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425.
2. Grease a 9″ pie plate, or line a muffin tin with 12 muffin liners.
3. Peel, core and slice:

• 3 apples (I like Gala for a cake like this), and toss with
• 1 t. lemon juice
• 3 T. maple syrup

4. Arrange apple slices in bottom of pan or muffin liners.  Set pan aside.

5.  Whisk together in a large bowl:

• 1 1/4 c. stone-ground cornmeal
• 3/4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. salt

6.  Whisk together in a medium bowl:

• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 c. milk
• 2/3 c. buttermilk or yogurt
• 1/4 c. maple syrup

7.  Add wet ingredients to dry, and stir just until moistened.  Stir in:

• 2 -3 T. melted butter or vegetable oil.

8.  Pour over apple slices.  Cut

• 3 oz. cheddar cheese

into 1/2″-wide long squares and insert into center of muffins or at some sort of interval around the cake.

9.  Bake muffins for 12 – 14 minutes, or cake for about 25 minutes.  Let muffins cool on rack until ready to serve.  If a whole cake, let cool thoroughly before inverting onto a plate.

Tags: cornmeal apple maple cake, cornmeal cake, melissa pasanen, the scuffer, wine & swine