PREPARATION:

Method

1. Melt the butter in your pan on medium-low heat and stir in the sugar. Keep stirring while the sugar begins to melt and turn into caramel. Be careful with this, melted sugar is hotter than lava and will give you a severe burn (trust me), so do not touch it. Don't worry if it's not 100 percent perfectly smooth; you'll be cooking this in the oven with the cake. Turn off the heat and let the lava cool, now's a good time to prep the fruit.
2. Slice apples. You can go as thin as you want, but I kept mine a little chunky, about 1/4-inch slices or so.
3. When the caramel is cool and safe to handle (it will have hardened up a good bit too) place your apples on top of it. You can be random and sprinkle the slices all over or do a spiral like I did creating a whole in the middle. I like filling the center with a small handful of walnuts, but that's totally optional, you can add more fruit or something else like berries if you wish. Just remember that this will be the top of the cake. Everyone is going to see the pattern you make with your apples, so make it pretty

Cake Batter:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Add the flour, baking powder, soda, and the salt together in a bowl and give them a real good stir to mix thoroughly. Please note that you need to sift the cake flour before you measure it out.
3. In a large bowl, add butter and sugar and combine with a standing mixer, eggbeater, or electric mixer. A standing mixer is best if you have one. Beat until creamy for a few minutes. Keep beating and add your egg until combined.
4. Add your vanilla and finally, the sour cream. Keep on beating and add your dry ingredients by thirds until combined.
5. Add the cake batter to the pan with the apples and caramel. This batter is very thick and you'll need some elbow grease to spread it out. One of my tricks is to lightly wet my fingers and use them to help spread the batter. You can press it into the nooks and crannies of the apples. The goal is to even it out, spreading it all over the pan.
6. Bake for between 25 and 30 minutes. The "top" surface should be golden and an inserted toothpick will come out cleanly with no crumbs attached. It's done.
7. You can let this cool in the pan until you are ready to serve it up, but be careful because that caramel is still hot as hell. Don't burn yourself, especially on the big reveal, which can get a little messy with all the hot caramel threads.
8. When you are ready to serve, run a butter knife around the edges and cover the skillet with a giant plate. In one fast motion, flip the pan and tamp on the back of the skillet. You should feel the cake drop. If not, tamp it some more until you do. Mentally cross your fingers and pull the skillet up and off and voila, upside down cake