Orange Upside-Down Cake

Please forgive the lousy picture quality!  We were in a hurry to eat, so I snapped a quickie iPhone shot, and then we tucked in.  Sometimes the stomach wins over art.

What does a magpie do when she has a bowl full of oranges plus a container of Greek yogurt in the fridge that needs to be used pronto . . . plus a serious craving for something sweet to go with a cup of Earl Grey?  She makes a sparkling, bejeweled orange upside-down cake.  I used this recipe from Family Spice.  It's incredibly fast and easy to prep, and it bakes in just 30 minutes in a cast-iron skillet.  My cast-iron skillet happens to be my favorite pan; it's well-seasoned and well-loved.  And now that this beauty of a cake popped right out of it with zero sticking, my cast-iron skillet is loved just a little bit more.

If you like oranges as well as a very moist cake, you will adore this recipe.  I'll definitely be making it again before Christmas, only this time I might do blood oranges and cranberries . . . or I'll change it up completely and do thin slices of pineapple (and maybe ripe mango).  I will likely add some vanilla as well, as the current recipe doesn't call for it, and I think it would boost the flavor a bit.  A little orange extract in addition to the orange zest would be nice, too, although just a drop or two.  It's easy to go overboard.  The recipe calls for plain Greek yogurt, but I only had vanilla, and it was delicious.  I often use vanilla yogurt when making sweet baked goods, and it substitutes beautifully.  I just use a little less sugar than the recipe calls for in order to balance out the sugar in the yogurt.

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More soon, chickadees!  xo Gigi