We have beautiful, full-flavored nectarines in season right now, so I couldn’t resist using them.  I left the skins on and sliced them into sixths.  This cake is so fast and easy- no frosting, no syrup, no piping bag- I love making it. 

I used the same total weight of fruit as the recipe but increased the proportion of stone fruit to 22 oz and decreased the blueberries accordingly. 

Only two notes for this cake:
First, this bakes up with a firm upper crust, which can make it difficult to test for doneness as it resists a gentle poke and tends to scrape the toothpick clean before the center is done.  I bake to an internal temp of at least 190F.

Second, there is often a little caramel left stuck to the pan after unmolding.  If you make the cake a day ahead of serving (it improves quite a bit after sitting for a day) it works well to just replace the caramel back on top of the cake, it will dissolve in a day or so.

Editing to say that although the cake was delicious, the skins on the nectarines were a little tough, so next time I’ll peel them.

Julie, that is breathtaking!  Your design is simply fabulous!  This is PPB, isn’t it?

Anne, thank you.

Rose’s Heavenly Cakes, second recipe in the book   It’s titled Plum Blueberry, but the intro talks about using other fruits, so I did!

Julie, the fruit are arranged beautifully!

Thanks, Julie!  Future printings need to include your picutre!  No one will be able to resist it!!!!!

Wow, this should be in the outcakes picture section…it would definitely inspire lots of people to make it (including me!)

Hector, Anne and Loopy, thanks so much for the kind words!

Julie, that looks amazing! How do you get your slices the same size and width? What a great flavor combination too. Lovely.

It is gorgeous. I have to try this recipe.

I totally agree, FG.  I just sort of passed over it, but seeing Julie’s picture makes it a must. 

Julie, if you can recall, what do you see as the difference in the ‘cake part’ and ‘topping part’ of this versus the Apple Upside Down Cake?  They are similar in so far as they are each butter cakes with caramel topping, but they have slightly different ingredients.  Any thoughts on end result vs. end result?  Also, remember on my Apple Upside Down Cake how the top ‘dulled’ after being refrigerated overnight?  Does this topping dull or remain much as it is before refrigeration?

I think it is one of the very few recipes without a picture. Thank you for making me aware of this recipe. I know it will by a fav in my house.

Thanks, Dar- the slices probably weren’t all the same, I just eyeballed it when slicing the nectarines into sixths.  But the nice thing about an upside-down cake is that the uneven parts end up buried in cake

Flour Girl and Anne, I’m glad to have piqued your interest, it’s an easy cake to make and easy to like. 

Here are two other posts for this cake:  http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/index_ee.php/forums/viewthread/2572/  and   http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/index_ee.php/forums/viewthread/2314/

Anne, in comparing the two cakes, I think the torte is a tad easier to make, with fewer ingredients/whole eggs.  It’s a bit more “plain” and therefore more flexible if you want to play with different fruit.  The only caution might be to choose fruits that are tasty when cooked and to choose flavors that pair well with caramelized (white) sugar.  The torte also uses a food processor, so that might sway some (who either like or don’t like the FP).  I think the torte may be a little more dense in texture than the apple cake, which is lighter.

The apple cake is a little more complicated, with sour cream and separated eggs (yolks only), but it is also a truly delicious base.  I think that making the caramel out of all brown sugar is well-suited to apples, but not sure about how flexible that is if you want to sub other fruit- I think peaches or pears might be a bit overwhelmed by the brown sugar caramel.  The apple cake is also smaller, serves fewer.

As for the issue of your apples dulling, I’m thinking that it may be due to either loss of moisture, and/or butter content.  The butter in the apple cake caramel will be shiny when melted and dull when refrigerated.  The torte doesn’t have butter in the caramel, although I did grease my pan with butter because I didn’t have any pan spray.  I didn’t notice a loss of shine so much as a loss of moisture- the fruit actually seemed to lose a little moisture into the cake, and was less plump the next day.

I’m going to edit my post above, to note that the skins were a little distracting to the texture of the cake, so next time I’ll peel the fruit.

It looks absolutely stunning Julie.  What a wonderful way to use nectarines.

Julie, it’s beautiful!!! I agree that your slices are impeccable and arranged so beautifully! Thanks for the notes on the skin and for inspiring us to try this combo .

Thanks, Julie, for all the great comparison info and the links to the other punters.

Jenn and Liza, thanks so much!

Anne, you’re welcome