{"slug":"upside-down-hazelnut-honey-spice-cake-with-caramelized-apples","collection":"recipes","is_recipe":true,"visibility":"public","title":"Upside Down Hazelnut Honey Spice Cake with Caramelized Apples","description":"A stunning inverted cake with honey-caramelized apple slices resting atop a spiced hazelnut flour batter fragrant with cinnamon and nutmeg.","body_md":"## Source\n\nhttps://marissarothkopf.substack.com/p/hazelnut-honey-spice-cake-with-caramelized\n\n\n![Cake](img/UpsideDownHacelnutHoneySpiceCakeWithCaramelizedApples.png \"the cake\")\n\n\n## Ingredients\n\n### For the caramel:\n- **3** medium apples (e.g., 2 Granny Smith and 1 Gala)\n- Fresh lemon juice\n- **57 grams (4 tablespoons)** unsalted butter\n- **50 grams (1/4 cup)** granulated sugar\n- **85 grams (1/4 cup)** honey\n- **1/2 teaspoon** vanilla extract\n- **1/2 teaspoon** salt\n\n### For the cake:\n- **71 grams (1/2 cup)** all-purpose flour\n- **71 grams (1/2 cup)** hazelnut flour\n- **3 tablespoons** corn starch\n- **1 teaspoon** baking powder\n- **1/2 teaspoon** baking soda\n- **1/2 teaspoon** salt\n- **1 teaspoon** ground cinnamon\n- **1/2 teaspoon** freshly grated nutmeg\n- **100 grams (1/2 cup)** granulated sugar\n- **169 grams (12 tablespoons)** unsalted butter, room temperature\n- **127 grams (1/4 cup)** honey\n- **3** large eggs, room temperature\n\n## Instructions\n\n1. **Prep the pan and oven:** Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Butter a 23cm (9”) cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.\n2. **Prepare the apples:** Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples. Toss with lemon juice.\n3. **Make the caramel:** In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Stir in honey and sugar until the mixture turns light brown. Remove from heat, and stir in vanilla and salt.\n4. Pour the caramel into the cake pan. Arrange apple slices on top of the caramel.\n5. **Make the cake:** In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, hazelnut flour, corn starch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In another bowl, cream together the butter, honey, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, then gradually mix in the dry ingredients.\n6. Spoon the batter over the apples, spreading it evenly to the edges of the pan.\n7. Bake for 30 minutes. If the center still wiggles, reduce the heat to 160°C (325°F) and bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.\n8. Let the cake cool for about 15 minutes, then invert onto a plate. Remove the parchment and rearrange any apples as needed.\n\nServe warm or at room temperature. Best if made within 24 hours of serving.\n\n\n## Notes\n\n- **Two measurements in this recipe contradict themselves, and they are the source's own (checked 2026-07-30).** The Substack original was re-read line by line and our transcription is faithful — nothing was mangled on the way in. But the source lists **\"1/4 cup (127 grams) runny honey\"** in the cake, while the same author writes **\"1/4 cup (85 grams) runny honey\"** in the caramel eight lines earlier. 85g is what ¼ cup of honey actually weighs; 127g is 6 tablespoons. And both flours are given as **\"1/2 cup (71 grams)\"** — 71g is about 18% over the 60g that ½ cup of all-purpose flour weighs, and hazelnut flour is nowhere near as dense as wheat flour, so one figure cannot be right for both.\n- **Nothing here settles which figure the author baked with**, so both were left exactly as published rather than quietly corrected — a 50% swing in the cake's honey and an 18% swing in its flour are the difference between two different cakes, and a silent edit would be indistinguishable from a transcription error later. Decide before you bake: **weigh, and the cake is wetter and denser; scoop by cup, and it is drier and lighter.** The author's own tip about oiling a liquid measuring cup before measuring honey suggests she works by volume, which leans toward the cup figures — but that is an inference, not a fact. Worth resolving by baking it once and recording which worked.\n- **Oven and pan (2026-07-30):** the source gives 350°F/180°C and a 9\" pan. Normalised to the house conversion ladder — 175°C (350°F) — and the pan given metric-first as 23cm (9\"). The 325°F step-down now also carries its metric equivalent, 160°C. The Fahrenheit figures are unchanged from the source.\n- **Step 5 (2026-07-30):** the step said only \"whisk together the dry ingredients\", leaving a cook to work out which eight of the twelve cake ingredients were meant. They are now named in the step. The sugar is creamed with the butter, not whisked with the dry — that was the ambiguity worth removing. The creaming time (\"about 3 minutes\") is the source's own and was restored to the step.\n\n- **The weight/volume mismatches here are in the published source, not in this transcription (verified 2026-07-30).** Marissa Rothkopf's original reads *\"1/4 cup (85 grams) runny honey\"* in the caramel and *\"1/4 cup (127 grams) runny honey\"* in the cake — the same volume given two weights 50% apart — and *\"1/2 cup (71 grams)\"* for both the all-purpose and the hazelnut flour, which is 142g per cup against the ~120g/cup (AP) and ~112g/cup (hazelnut) that half a cup actually weighs. Nothing was mistyped on the way in.\n- **Measure this one by volume.** The volumes are internally coherent (¼, ¼, ½, ½); the gram figures are not (85, 127, 71, 71). Where a recipe's two systems disagree, use the one that is self-consistent. If you prefer to weigh: ¼ cup of runny honey is ~85g, ½ cup of all-purpose is ~60g, and ½ cup of hazelnut flour is ~56g.\n- Left faithful to the source rather than silently corrected — the author's intent between 85g and 127g of honey cannot be recovered from the text, and a bake test is the only way to settle it.\n","draft":false,"servings":"8","prep_time":"25 minutes","cook_time":"40 minutes","total_time":"1 hour 5 minutes","source_name":"Marissa Rothkopf","source_url":"https://marissarothkopf.substack.com/p/hazelnut-honey-spice-cake-with-caramelized","created_at":"2024-01-05T05:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-30T23:22:37.222654Z","categories":["dessert"],"tags":["Apples","hazelnut","marissa_rothkopf"],"methods":["Baked"],"themes":["Vegetarian"],"ingredients":[{"section":"For the caramel:","items":["- **3** medium apples (e.g., 2 Granny Smith and 1 Gala)","- Fresh lemon juice","- **57 grams (4 tablespoons)** unsalted butter","- **50 grams (1/4 cup)** granulated sugar","- **85 grams (1/4 cup)** honey","- **1/2 teaspoon** vanilla extract","- **1/2 teaspoon** salt"],"parsed":[{"raw":"- **3** medium apples (e.g., 2 Granny Smith and 1 Gala)","qty":3,"item":"medium apples"},{"raw":"- Fresh lemon juice","item":"Fresh lemon juice"},{"raw":"- **57 grams (4 tablespoons)** unsalted butter","qty":57,"unit":"g","item":"unsalted butter"},{"raw":"- **50 grams (1/4 cup)** granulated sugar","qty":50,"unit":"g","item":"granulated sugar"},{"raw":"- **85 grams (1/4 cup)** honey","qty":85,"unit":"g","item":"honey"},{"raw":"- **1/2 teaspoon** vanilla extract","qty":0.5,"unit":"tsp","item":"vanilla extract"},{"raw":"- **1/2 teaspoon** salt","qty":0.5,"unit":"tsp","item":"salt"}]},{"section":"For the cake:","items":["- **71 grams (1/2 cup)** all-purpose flour","- **71 grams (1/2 cup)** hazelnut flour","- **3 tablespoons** corn starch","- **1 teaspoon** baking powder","- **1/2 teaspoon** baking soda","- **1/2 teaspoon** salt","- **1 teaspoon** ground cinnamon","- **1/2 teaspoon** freshly grated nutmeg","- **100 grams (1/2 cup)** granulated sugar","- **169 grams (12 tablespoons)** unsalted butter, room temperature","- **127 grams (1/4 cup)** honey","- **3** large eggs, room temperature"],"parsed":[{"raw":"- **71 grams (1/2 cup)** all-purpose flour","qty":71,"unit":"g","item":"all-purpose flour"},{"raw":"- **71 grams (1/2 cup)** hazelnut flour","qty":71,"unit":"g","item":"hazelnut flour"},{"raw":"- **3 tablespoons** corn starch","qty":3,"unit":"tbsp","item":"corn starch"},{"raw":"- **1 teaspoon** baking powder","qty":1,"unit":"tsp","item":"baking powder"},{"raw":"- **1/2 teaspoon** baking soda","qty":0.5,"unit":"tsp","item":"baking soda"},{"raw":"- **1/2 teaspoon** salt","qty":0.5,"unit":"tsp","item":"salt"},{"raw":"- **1 teaspoon** ground cinnamon","qty":1,"unit":"tsp","item":"ground cinnamon"},{"raw":"- **1/2 teaspoon** freshly grated nutmeg","qty":0.5,"unit":"tsp","item":"freshly grated nutmeg"},{"raw":"- **100 grams (1/2 cup)** granulated sugar","qty":100,"unit":"g","item":"granulated sugar"},{"raw":"- **169 grams (12 tablespoons)** unsalted butter, room temperature","qty":169,"unit":"g","item":"unsalted butter","prep":"room temperature"},{"raw":"- **127 grams (1/4 cup)** honey","qty":127,"unit":"g","item":"honey"},{"raw":"- **3** large eggs, room temperature","qty":3,"item":"large eggs","prep":"room temperature"}]}],"images":[{"path":"img/UpsideDownHacelnutHoneySpiceCakeWithCaramelizedApples.png","url":"/api/v1/recipes/upside-down-hazelnut-honey-spice-cake-with-caramelized-apples/images/UpsideDownHacelnutHoneySpiceCakeWithCaramelizedApples.png"}],"servings_int":8,"qc":{"status":"failed","last_checked_at":"2026-07-30T23:22:50.325707Z","checked_by":"claude-code","standard_version":"2026-07-30","findings_count":1,"stale":false}}