Apricot Upside Down Chocolate Cake

It’s again birthday month in my family. Today is my husband’s official birthday (sounds funny lol)

And two days back was my brother in law’s birthday. On 10^th is my sis in laws b'day so yes another cake in pipeline. This cake I had made on my brother in law’s birthday but my husband missed it so made it again today. He is really fussy when it comes to eating fruits, so fruits in dessert are the only way I have been able to sneak up fruits in his diet. I replaced brown sugar with Jaggery Sugar for the sticky taste, it definitely worked.

 

Preparation time- 10 minutes

Cooking time- 40 minutes

Ingredients-

Apricots- 250 gm

Brown sugar / Jaggery Sugar- ½ cup

Star anise- 1

Butter- 1 cup

Castor sugar- ½ cup

Vanilla essence- ½ tsp

Eggs- 3

Flour- 2 cups

Cocoa powder- ½ cup

Espresso Coffee powder- ½ tbsp

Baking powder- ½ tbsp

Milk- 2 tbsp

Method-

Line the cake tin with parchment paper; preheat the oven to 180°C. Wash the apricots, remove the stone and slice them. In a saucepan add apricots, sugar, ½ tbsp butter and star anise. Make the caramel with occasional stir till bubbles form on the surface and apricots are completely coated in the syrup. This will take 5-8 minutes. Remove the star anise, line the apricots in the cake tin as per the design you wish on the cake top and pour in the caramel. I did in circular motion (requires a lot of patience). Cream butter and sugar and then add eggs gradually to a fluffy mix. Add vanilla essence; sift flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder and baking powder together in the egg mix. Fold together and add milk if required to loosen the batter. Transfer to the apricots lined cake tin and layer the batter smoothly. Bake for 25- 30 min or till the skewer comes out clean.  Allow it to cool for 10 minutes. Get the cake out on the serving plate carefully as the juice and caramel would spill out once inverted on the plate. Make sure the serving plate is the edged one to contain the caramel and juice.