This beautiful orange vanilla upside down cake is cooked in a skillet and takes less than an hour and a half to make. Caramelized oranges on top of a delicious vanilla cake made from a combination of all purpose flour and almond flour.

I found my holiday dessert. I'll be making orange vanilla upside down cake this season, probably on multiple occasions. I've made three of them so far in the last month and I'm still completely enamored.

I hardly ever bake - that's my husband Eddie's domain.

But there's something about this cake....

There are a very few dessert recipes on Panning The Globe. Once in a blue moon something sweet comes along that finds its way to my heart. This cake has got me! It's made with half almond flour and half white flour. The almond flour - which is full of protein, fiber, and healthy fats - creates a moist, soft crumb. The oranges on top are a little sticky and caramelized - a wonderful counterpart to the delicate cake. There's also that delicious vanilla/orange flavor thing going on.

I love the way this cake looks. I keep glancing up from my computer to admire it, sitting on the counter - so pretty. I keep imagining how nice it will be to cut off a little slice and have it with coffee when the afternoon starts to drag.

Orange Vanilla Upside Down Cake - Panning The Globe

How to make an upside down cake

Just as it sounds, you literally make it upside down and then flip it.

Start by making the orange topping. Melt sugar with water and a scraped-out vanilla bean in a large non-stick oven-proof skillet. I use my 12-inch cast iron skillet.
Arrange the super-thinly sliced orange rounds over the vanilla syrup. Create a pattern that you want for the top of your cake. Then simmer the oranges in the syrup for 15 minutes, until they soften and soak up the syrup.
Mix up the batter: eggs, sugar, vanilla, flour, baking powder, salt, butter and almond flour. Pour the batter over oranges and bake for 45 minutes.
Run a knife around the edge of the pan to be sure the cake won't stick when you flip it. Invert the cake, carefully, onto a cake plate.

To invert I turned my cake plate upside down and lay it on top of my skillet. Then, with oven mitts on my hands, I grabbed the edges of the plate and the pan together, flipped everything over, set the plate down, lifted off the skillet, and voila!

Orange Vanilla Upside Down Cake • The perfect holiday dessert • Panning The Globe

This recipe is adapted from Donna Hay Seasons. Donna Hay Australia's best-selling cookbook author. I have a large and ever-growing collection of her beautiful cookbooks. They're all filled with simple inspiring recipes and gorgeous food photos.

Here's the recipe for orange vanilla upside down cake. If you make this I hope you'll come back and leave a star rating and a comment. I can't wait to hear what you think. Happy baking!

Recipe