11 Incredible Upside-Down Cake Recipes

The simple technique of caramelizing fruit and arranging at the bottom of a cake pan, topping with cake batter, and flipping after baking and cooling yields a timeless classic: upside-down cakes. The method embeds seasonal fruit with concentrated flavor into the top of a cake and produces a beautiful presentation. These upside-down cake recipes celebrate peaches, pineapple, and berries for summer occasions, apples and pears for autumn, citrus in winter (or whenever), and stunning rhubarb in the spring. Here’s inspiration to bake an incredibly simple and showstopping cake.

Apple Upside-Down Cake

Cara Cormack

You only need two Golden Delicious apples for this buttery, vanilla-scented cake created by Grace Parisi.

Vegan Peach-Almond Upside-Down Cake

Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Heather Claire Spollen

Nutty almond meal adds a soft texture to this cake and helps it hold together as the peaches soften and sweeten during baking. Choose a gluten-free flour blend and nut-based nondairy milk for a vegan, gluten-free summer treat.

Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake with Orange Zest

Photo by Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Christina Daley

Balance tender pieces of tart rhubarb with a brown-sugar topping on this vanilla- and orange-scented cake from Anna Theoktisto.

Lemon Upside-Down Cake

Cal Peternell uses sweet Meyer lemons for this quick upside-down cake that would work well with figs, blood oranges, or pineapple, too.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Kristin Ferguson infuses fresh pineapple pieces with vanilla bean, sugar, then bakes the fruit with this sour cream vanilla cake that’s earned five-star reviews.