This saskatoon upside-down cake turns those luscious prairie berries into a jewel of a cake glistening with deep purple saskatoons swimming in their honeyed juices. The lightly sweetened sponge cake gets inverted after baking to soak up all that lusciousness. Eat this cake warm with ice cream, and you'll be devouring more than one piece, I guarantee you!
We have been up to our elbows in saskatoons around here. This year, because of all the rain we've had earlier on, the saskatoon berries are particularly sweet, juicy, and abundant. The branches of the bushes are sighing and bending with the weight of dusky berries. What a precious harvest!
Raymond has been picking saskatoons for hours every day, with his trusty sidekick Pippa, who scarfs down every fallen berry as quickly as it falls. She is 17 years old, but still loves those berries.
The pails keep coming into the house and I get busy sorting (to remove duds and critters - see my handy way to clean saskatoons here) and then turn them into saskatoon juice or this delicious saskatoon upside-down cake.
My kitchen looks like a crazy mess as I'm busy juicing berries all day long. It took us 4 days to pick and process over 50 gallons of saskatoons, and we still left lots on the trees for the birds. But we have quarts of unsweetened saskatoon juice canned and put away for the winter. Every day all year long, Raymond and I drink a shot of saskatoon juice, loving its goodness for all the beautiful antioxidants and nutrients it contains.
In between picking and juicing, I make this irresistible saskatoon upside-down cake, and it's a most delicious reward for all that work. My gluten-free flour blend works beautifully in the batter (but regular flour works, too). A touch of honey in both the jammy fruit-sauced topping and the light sponge cake complements the almond and vanilla notes in the berries perfectly, producing a rich caramelly flavour that takes the cake into the territory of sublime. It is the taste of summer in one delicious package.
More Saskatoon Deliciousness
For more exciting saskatoon berry recipes, check out these posts:
- Saskatoon Juice (And How to Easily Clean Your Saskatoon Berries)
- Saskatoon Roll or Saskatoon Cobbler (And How to Freeze Your Saskatoon Berries)
- Old-fashioned Saskatoon Pie
- Canned Saskatoons and Saskatoon-Peach Preserve
- Saskatoon Jelly
- Saskatoon Ice Cream
- Chilled Saskatoon Soup (a dessert soup)
- Prairie Mess (Eton Mess with Saskatoons and Rhubarb)
- Gluten Free Saskatoon Scones
- Saskatoon Muffins
- Saskatoon Slump
- Saskatoon Drizzle Cake
- Pork Chops with Saskatoon and Green Apple Chutney
- Saskatoon Pickle (a delicious saskatoon relish/chutney)
What You'll Need for This Cake
To make a luscious Saskatoon Upside-Down Cake, you'll need:
How to Make a Saskatoon Upside-Down Cake
Melt some butter and honey with a bit of tapioca starch or corn starch to thicken the juices. Tapioca starch makes for a clearer, shinier glaze, but corn starch will work fine, too.
Now make the batter - whip the butter and honey together til creamy. Add the eggs, then the flour and liquid ingredients alternately. Sour cream makes the batter especially moist and tangy.
Bake the cake until the juices are bubbling up around the edges. Let it cool slightly in the pan, then carefully flip it onto a serving platter. This is the scariest part, but it's really easy. Just invert the plate (large enough to hold the cake and catch any juices) on top of the baking pan. Put one hand on the plate and the other under the pan (use an oven glove or pot holder so you don't burn yourself) and flip it quickly and confidently over, so the cake slips out of the pan and onto the plate.
There. You did it!
There'll be some beautiful scarlet juices that drizzle over the edge of the cake, making a delicious sauce. Tuck any stray berries back into place and serve the cake warm with ice cream or whipped cream.
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Guten Appetit!
Saskatoon Upside-Down Cake
Ingredients
for the 'upside-down' saskatoon layer:
- ¼ cup (60 g) melted butter
- ⅓ cup (115 g) liquid honey
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons tapioca starch or corn starch
- 1 tablespoon water
- 3 cups saskatoon berries, fresh or frozen (about 1 lb/450 g)
for the cake batter:
- ½ cup (115 g) salted butter, soft
- ¼ cup (85 g) liquid honey
- 2 large eggs
- 1½ cups (210 g) gluten-free flour blend, or regular flour for non-gluten-free
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup (120 ml) milk
- 1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ½ cup (120 ml) sour cream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃). Set out a 9x9-inch (23x23cm) square baking pan (no need to line it) or a 10-inch (25-cm) round springform pan lined with one large square of parchment paper that sticks up the sides all around the pan, to prevent leakage of the filling through the seam between the sides and base of the springform pan. (Tip: crumple the paper, then smooth it out, and it will be easier to fit it into the pan.)
- Add the melted butter, honey, and lemon juice to the baking pan you are using. Stir the tapioca starch (or corn starch) together with the 1 tablespoon of water to make a slurry, and add it to the pan. Stir together the ingredients in the pan to combine them somewhat and make a syrup.
- Sprinkle the saskatoon berries in an even layer over the syrup. Set the pan aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or hand mixer, whip the butter and honey together until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add about a third of the flour and beat just to combine it.
- Add the milk and vanilla, beat to combine.
- Add another third of the flour, beat to combine.
- Add the sour cream, beat to combine.
- Add the remaining third of the flour, along with the baking powder and baking soda, and beat to combine everything until there are no pockets of flour remaining. Scrape the bowl with a spatula to make sure to incorporate any flour at the bottom of the bowl.
- Drop the batter in spoonfuls evenly over the saskatoon berries in the baking pan, and then with a spatula carefully spread the batter to the edges of the pan, trying not to disturb the berries too much. Smooth out the batter on the top of the cake, making sure the batter touches the edge of the pan all the way around, to seal it and prevent the berry mixture from bubbling up too much.Note: if you are using regular flour, the batter will be looser and can be scraped from the bowl onto the berries, and will need very little evening out.
- Bake for 33-38 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake (just into the batter, not into the berries below) comes out clean or with a few crumbs adhered to it. It is natural for the cake to have large cracks in the top, as the berries below expand while they are cooking and push the batter up somewhat. It will deflate again as it cools.
- Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then it's time to make the 'upside-down' part happen. Choose a platter or serving tray big enough to hold the whole cake, with space around it to catch any stray oozing of juices.
- Invert the platter over the top of the pan. Put one hand (with a pot holder or towel over it) underneath the hot pan and one hand on top of the inverted platter, and in one smooth, confident move, flip the pan and plate so the plate is on the bottom and the cake slips down out of the pan and onto the plate.
- Carefully remove the baking pan, and scrape out any stray berries that have stuck to the pan, and place them back into the empty spots on top of the cake. Tuck in any stray berries that slip over the sides of the cake, too.
- Cut the cake into 9 squares (or wedges if you used a round pan) and serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream.
- Keep leftover cake, covered, in the fridge for up to 3 days. Re-warm the cake before serving.
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