Peach Upside Down Cake

This delicious peaches upside down cake is a spin-off of the classic Pineapple Upside Down Cake, featuring a moist cake base with caramelized brown sugar cinnamon topping and sweet peach slices.

Cake is incredibly moist and slightly dense. Fresh peach slices grace the top of the cake, and the cinnamon brown sugar topping sips into the spongy peach cake during baking, giving it a rich caramelized glaze. It tastes every bit as dreamy as it sounds.

If peaches are a favorite, also be sure to check out our Mini Peach Cobbler and Easy Peach Crisp recipes! I think you’ll love them as well.

Upside Down Cake with Peaches

I love peaches everything when the weather warms up, and recently I’ve been loving this peach upside down cake recipe.

This pretty and rustic vintage peach upside down cake is basically a variation of the classic Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Instead of using pineapple, we are using slices of peach for our toppings.

They are called upside down cakes because the peach and brown sugar glaze is at the bottom of the cake pan when the peach upside down cake is baked in the oven. When it is done and set, we flip the cake over, or rather, upside down, with the peaches now appearing on top.

Upside down cakes look beautiful, and makes for a lovely centerpiece. Without a whole lot of work. They look like you labored all day to create that pretty design from slices of peaches, but in truth, this should take only about 15 minutes of prep time.

During the summer when peaches are juicy and sweet, I love using fresh peaches for this recipe.

When peaches are not in season, feel free to use canned peaches – they are honestly just as good. Recipe card at the bottom of this post will explain more about the difference between baking this with fresh and canned peaches.

That rich caramelized cinnamon brown sugar glaze soaked into the tops of each slice of juicy peaches pairs so well with that moist, slightly dense vanilla cake wrapped with the lovely aroma hint of peach flavor.

Get ready to fall in love with this quick and no-fuss vintage peach upside down cake recipe! 🧡

If you’re looking for more upside down cakes, don’t forget to also check out our banana upside down cake!

Ingredients

Here are the ingredients you will need to make homemade peach upside down cake:

Cake batter

• unsalted butter – use softened butter so that it is easier to mix the batter. Use unsalted instead of salt butter to control the amount of salt in the cake.
• brown sugar – brown sugar has a deeper, richer flavor than white sugar. It pairs very well with peaches
• sour cream
• vanilla extract – use pure vanilla extract for more robust, richer flavor.
• whole milk – highly recommend using whole milk for a rich and creamier cake texture, but in a pinch 2% milk can be used as well. I wouldn’t do 1% or fat free.
• egg
• peach nectar – I really love the peach flavor it helps bring out in the cake batter! If you are using canned peaches, you can use the liquid as peach nectar.
• ground cinnamon – cinnamon and peach really brings out so much of the flavor in each other. I tested it without it and it was just not the same. It was my assistant, Kendall’s idea to add cinnamon. And as usual, she’s right! P/S: It will also make your kitchen smells amazing!
• all purpose flour
• baking soda – this is the rising agent used for our cake. Even though the cake texture is a bit denser than traditional American cake, this is still an important ingredient.
• baking powder – another rising agent for the cake
• salt – used to open up the flavors.

Peach Topping

• peaches – slice them into small pieces. I typically get 12 slices from every peach. I use 2 peaches for each peach upside down cake.
• unsalted butter
• brown sugar
• cinnamon – the caramelized brown sugar cinnamon flavors really pair well with our peach upside down cake.

How to Make Peach Upside Down Cake

We will be using a 9′ round cake pan for this peach upside down cake recipe. The depth of your cake pan should be around 2″ deep.

Make the Topping

Let’s make the delicious topping that will form the top of the peach upside down cake. Aka my favorite part of this whole cake.

The term “upside down cake” comes about because the toppings are initially placed on the bottom of the cake pan, under the cake batter. Once the cake is done baking and cools, it is flipped onto a platter to serve, with the lovely toppings on top of the cake.

For the peach upside down cake toppings, place softened butter in 9′ round cake pan

Place cake pan in the oven to warm and melt butter. Once butter is melted, remove from oven and bring cake pan to flat surface. Be careful when handling cake pan because it will be hot!

Separately, bring together brown sugar and cinnamon, then stir to combine.

To the pool of melted butter, add the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture – spread them all over evenly.

Then bring peach slices into cake pan and arrange slices.

This is an upside down cake, so once the peach upside down cake is done baking, we will be inverting the cake, and this, technically, will be the top of the cake.

When arranging peach toppings in the cake pan, consider the design that you would want for your peach upside down cake. It doesn’t have to be fancy – just rows of peach slices will do just fine. Peach upside down cake shown in the picture above have peach slices arranged in circles.

Make Cake Batter

Next we will be making the peach cake batter that will go on top of the peach topping in the cake pan.

Bring wet ingredients (softened butter, brown sugar, sour cream, egg), milk and flavoring (vanilla extract, cinnamon and peach nectar) to the mixing bowl and whisk.

After all the wet ingredients above are whisked together, add dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

Fold to combine, then pour cake batter into the cake pan, and use a spatula to spread out the cake batter.

Bake

Place the 9′ round cake pans into the oven, and bake for 35 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes out clean when inserted in the middle of the cake.

Eagerly anticipate the lovely aroma of this delicious peach upside down cake as it fills your kitchen…it’s such a beautiful thing!

Once peaches upside down cake is done, remove from oven and let it cool on a cooling rack for five minutes.

Don’t let the peach upside down cake sit for longer than 5 minutes or the caramelized topping will harden and stick to the bottom of the pan.

Once it has rested for five minutes, place a large platter on top of the cake, and then invert it!

Serve!

Once flipped, remove cake pan and peach upside down cake should on a platter with beautiful peaches and glaze on top.

Let the lovely peaches upside down cake cool for another 10-15 minutes before slicing and serving.

The weather is warm and beautiful, and our summer days are filled with this vintage peaches upside down cake. Sending you lots of happy, peachy summer vibes…ENJOY!

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