Upside-Down Double Apple Coffee Cake

This recipe has a lot of potential, the flavor is great but the cake itself is a little dense and slightly gummy. When substituting applesauce for fat in a recipe I generally use equal parts fat / applesauce. One tip for success when baking with applesauce - beat the eggs and applesauce together, then beat that with the fat and then add the sugar. This recipe does not call for salt so if you are using unsalted butter I would suggest adding 1/4 tsp salt.

I consider myself an avid baker, and I could tell just by looking at the ingredient amounts in this recipe that the texture of this cake was going to be way off (particularly in the lack of fat and too much applesauce). In going with my gut instinct, I made a few "tweaks" that elevated this to a 4-5 star recipe (I liked it, hubs loved it). I increased the butter to 1/2 cup and reduced the applesauce to 1/2 cup and add 1 more egg. I beat the eggs in with the applesauce, as suggested by Baking Nana, and added about 1/4 cup of milk to the batter to thin it out a bit before pouring over the apples/cranberries. With these changes, baking time was right around 48 minutes in my oven. I served this with a dollop of whipped cream, and it was a moist and delicious cake, and one that I'd make again.

Although I'm typically not a baker, this recipe appealed to me and I gave it a try today. I am so glad I did - we loved it!! The only change I made, after reading the reviews, was to use 1/2 cup of butter rather than 1/4 cup. It was delicious from the warm apples in step 2 through the final result.

I really like the idea of this recipe, but it needs some tweaking. I prepared this exactly as directed and as Baking Nana stated in her review, the cake is very dense and the consistency is rather unappealing. It had decent flavor, not quite sweet enough for my tastes. I did use a Honeycrisp apple, which was very sweet and that part was excellent. Although this recipe needs some work, my kids still enjoyed it and the whole thing is already gone.

I have made other Motts recipes from this site and it seemed that the ratio of applesauce to fat was off and my recipes were not a success, so, after reading previous reviewers comments I decided to take their suggestions and tweak the recipe accordingly. I used 1/2 cup of softened butter & 1/2 cup of applesauce. I also thought my other Motts recipes were a little bland, so, I added a couple of pinches of salt. I made everything else according to the recipe. It took about 40 minutes for my cake to cook. The cake was ok, but, we weren't overwhelmed by the flavor. It was a little dry and I think it would taste better and be moister if some chunked apples were added to the batter and not just slices in the bottom of the pan. I probably would not make again.

After reading the other reviews I made this recipe with tweaks to help it turn out better. I use applesauce in baking quite a bit and my first reaction was the proportion were off. I reduced the apple sauce to 1/4 cup..I also made this gluten free by using gluten free flour and 1tsp xantham gum. My other tweaks were too add 2t of baking powder,1/2t salt, 1t vanilla and 1/2cup greek yogurt. I also upped the cinnamon to a full teaspoon and added a teaspoon to the brown sugar and apple mix. I did have to bake the cake longer with the tweaks.

I followed the recipe exactly except I used craisens instead of fresh cranberries cause it's all I had.I wish I would have read some reviews first! All though the cake had ok flavor it was nothing special I might try making this again tweaking some like the reviews said.

Loved it, super moist and did not last long around here!

Forgot to add addtl butter per reviews and it was still good. Omitted the cranberries (wasn't in a cranberry mood). I skipped the cooking apples because i thought some of the pics had some soggy looking apples. Just mixed the sugar/water, layered the fresh apple slices in prepared pan and poured over the sugar mixture and then the batter over that. I'm a chocolate girl so i may not make this again but apple pie lovers are asking for 2nds.

This coffee cake was so moist! Not dry like other coffee cakes I’ve tried! I took some of Baking Nana’s suggestions and it turned out fantastic!! I will definitely be making this again!!

I didn't make any changes the first time. The second time I subbed butter for applesauce. Both versions were much liked!