What's better than fresh mango? Fresh mango atop a moist & delicious rum cake! Impress guests with this easy to make recipe that creates a stunning Mango Upside Down Cake dessert.
Living in South Florida certainly has its perks, besides the warm sunshine, blue sky and nearby ocean. I know you're wondering what else could be better than that! How about plenty of tropical fruit! We have banana, key lime, orange and mango trees right in our backyard. And when summer draws near that lovely mango tree is full of deliciously sweet orange & yellow-colored fruit.
And lots of fruit means thinking up lots of recipes to use them in. I've made mango salsa which goes great atop chicken, fish, shrimp or pork, mango smoothies and cocktails like my husband's famous Mango Colada but when I saw a picture of this delicious looking mango cake in Martha Stewart Living this month, I knew I just had to try making it. And it is not something people would expect to see which made it even more appealing.
The hardest part about making this cake was cooking up the sweet caramel sugar for the topping. After that, it was smooth sailing. I did adapt several things in the recipe, I used almond oil rather than safflower oil and slightly less mangoes than called for as I couldn't fit any more on the top.
You'd never believe what the cake tasted like when I finally got to serve it. Does "tropical heaven" do it for you? It did for me, oh that is, after I swooned with delight over how unbelievably tasty it was! Tell me, have you ever had those rum cakes from the islands? Well you just might mistake this cake for one of those too-hard-to-resist Tortuga Rum Cakes! The cake turns out so moist and so tasty that I think I want to make one just to eat it all by itself!
I'm betting this same cake would be delicious if made with pineapple or bananas too (here's the banana one - it came out yummy!). Well, I'll save that for another day. Hope you get to give it a try. If you do, drop us a comment as we always love to hear from our readers.
Enjoy!
MANGO UPSIDE DOWN CAKE
Ingredients
- 1-½ cups sugar
- 2 Tablespoons water
- 2 large mangoes, enough to cover bottom of pan tightly
Cake batter
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
- ⅓ cup buttermilk
- ½ cup almond oil
- 2 Tablespoons dark rum (I used Myers Dark Rum)
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ripe banana mashed (about ⅓ cup)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a small saucepan, heat ½ cup sugar with water, over high heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves, about 3-5 minutes.
- Allow the mixture to come to a boil and let cook without stirring until it turns a dark amber color. As it cooks, swirl the pan occasionally and, using a pastry brush dipped in water, wipe down the crystals of sugar that appear on the side.
- Pour into the bottom of a 9" cake pan, tilting to cover bottom evenly. Be careful because the pan gets very hot from the sugar mixture.
- Peel mangoes and cut down both sides of pit. Cut each of these sides into slices. Place slices on top of sugar mixture carefully, packing them in tightly.
- In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt and remaining 1 cup of sugar. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, add remaining wet ingredients including banana. Mix well and add to dry ingredients until combined.
- Pour batter on top of mangoes.
- Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and place on wire rack to cool for 15 minutes.
- Loosen cake from edges of pan. Place plate over cake and invert. Slowly lift cake pan from cake, using knife to loosen any edges that are still stuck. Let cool completely.
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i am so intrigued by this idea! what a great spin on an upside down cak.
Thanks Anna! It was fun to try something a little different than the standard pineapple. I hope you get to try it soon!