TWD Nectarine Upside-Down Chiffon Cake

Despite this post being a couple of days late, I actually made this cake early.  I wanted to make the cake while I knew we'd still have good nectarines at the farmer's market, and a Sunday night dinner with my grandma and brother seemed like the perfect opportunity.  Of course, the afternoon got much busier than I was planning on (to be honest, there was a one day sale that I really didn't want to miss!), so I was pretty panicked about how I was going to get the cake baked in time.  I had no idea what a chiffon cake was, but it sounded fancy and time-consuming.  

Luckily, I was completely wrong.  This cake had three components--the fruit, the streusel, and the cake batter--but none of them was too hard to make.  I'm still not great at gently folding in whipped egg whites, but I took my time and I think it went better than the last time.  The cake had an excellent texture, and we all loved the flavor.  Paul thought it tasted like a coffee cake--because of the streusel, I think--but definitely in a good way.  My only problem with this cake was the presentation.  It's probably because my springform pan is pretty cheap, but a lot of the (delicious!) caramel leaked out of the bottom.  Some of the cake also stuck to the sides of the pan when I inverted it.  It obviously didn't affect the flavor, but the sides of the cake were not nearly as pretty and uniform as I was hoping they would be.  Oh well.  I definitely plan on making this cake again, with all different kinds of fruit, so I'll have lots of opportunities to perfect the presentation.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the leftovers from my Sunday dinner.  I knew we'd eat well all weekend, so I wanted to to keep things (relatively) simple and rely on Paul's garden.  I made zucchini stuffed with homemade ricotta cheese, sliced tomatoes with basil, and pasta with pesto.  Followed by the chiffon cake, I was very happy with how the dinner turned out.  I was also thrilled to have such fun guests to share the dinner with.  Last, I couldn't resist taking a photo of the Fig and Almond tart (from Dorie's Baking) that I made a couple of weeks ago.  It was a delicious way to use figs from our tree, and another beautiful fruit dessert.  For the Nectarine Chiffon cake recipe, visit our hosts for the week Marlise and Susan.  Visit the TWD site to read what all of the other bloggers thought of the recipe.