Brown Sugar Upside Down Cake

My mom recently reminded me of upside down cake. When we were kids she would make peach or pineapple upside down cake, and the fruit was always surrounded by a generous layer of crispy brown sugar topping. I'm not a fan of a lot of fruits (I have a texture thing) and I'm especially not a fan of fruit in cake (except for banana cake/bread. Don't try to figure me out!). I'm sure assorted fruits in cakes taste wonderful, but I don't like when my cake has things in it. It is silly, but there you go. When mom would make her upside down cakes, I would sneak the brown sugar bits off the top and not actually eat the gross fruit/cake. I was/am picky.

Well, I'm an adult now, and when mom reminded me of fruit upside down cake, I decided I would give it a try, but leave out the fruit. Following this recipe, I added some melted butter to a 9x13 cake pan, covered it in a bunch of brown sugar, and then poured a cake on top of it. I baked it, and flipped it over and out onto a cookie sheet. At this point I realized something was amiss, as the brown sugar wasn't as caramelized and stuck to the cake as I wanted. It's possible the fruit had a purpose that I didn't compensate for (maybe it adds liquid while baking).

So the top of the cake was a little crunchier than I expected, but it tasted pretty great. The nice thing about this cake is the topping replaces having to ice it. Easy.