Apple Honey Upside-Down Cake

Dairy free, paleo apple honey upside-down cake is perfect for cool fall days.

Subtly spiced and not too sweet, it's great for breakfast or dessert!

The tradition of dipping apples in honey to celebrate Rosh Hashanah inspired me to bake this apple honey upside-down cake. Apples and honey represent the double dose of sweetness that's hoped for in the year ahead. I didn't get this post ready in time to share before the holiday, but this cake is an ideal dessert for anytime in the fall. Whether or not you celebrate Rosh Hashanah, everyone can use a little extra hint of sweetness as the air turns crisp and the nights begin to fall sooner.

I based this recipe on my lemon olive oil cake, which is a dessert I've made again and again for all sorts of occasions. This apple honey upside-down cake is the perfect fall twist on my go-to cake.

To make this cake, I poured copious amounts of honey into the bottom of a parchment-lined pan, and then arranged apple slices on top. Since the apples and honey are so sweet, I only used a tiny bit of sweetener in the cake batter itself, and included a few hints of savory flavors to balance things out. Using extra virgin olive oil instead of butter makes the cake dairy free and provides a complexity that keeps the cake from being pure, unadulterated sweetness. And ginger and cardamom, spices that play on both the sweet and savory teams, are a welcome change from the usual cinnamon.

Maple Apple Spice Cake

My boyfriend doesn't like things made with apples, pumpkin, or squash, so fall is kind of a hard time for us.  I'm all like, "It's time to apple-pumpkin-squashify all the things!" and he's all like, "Oh, it looks like there's some bread over there for toast."  Literally, he had toast for lunch the other day.  I could not even get him to try a bite of this butternut squash soup with fried garlic and chili oil.

I've been a paleo food blogger for long enough that I feel like a little bit of a failure when my boyfriend has toast for lunch.

Things are going a little bit better on the apple front, though, because Ben really liked this cake.  Unless you're the one to stir the grated apple into the batter, which would be a pretty major tipoff, you probably won't know that there's any apple in it.  It does help make the batter extra moist, though, kind of like the zucchini in zucchini bread, and also adds a little more sweetness.

Cooking with Coconut Oil Review + Pork Chops & Apple Compote (Whole30 Day 5)

When I was offered a review copy of Cooking with Coconut Oil by Elizabeth Nyland of Guilty Kitchen, my answer was a resounding YES!  I am a huge cookbook junkie, and especially like to read books penned by fellow food bloggers.  Also, since I started eating paleo in August, I've loved using coconut oil in the kitchen, and was eager to learn more things I could do with it.  Today I'm sharing my experience cooking & photographing three amazing recipes from the book, and the recipe for Pork Chops with Apple Compote is at the end of this post!

Cooking with Coconut Oil arrived the day before I left to spend the holidays in Tennessee with Ben's family, so I did not get to cook with it right away.  I had plenty of time to page through it, though, bookmarking recipes I wanted to try and craving almost everything pictured in the gorgeous photographs.  This cookbook features a large, full-color photo of every single recipe, which I love.  (Cookbooks that only show pictures of some of their recipes are a huge pet peeve of mine--I never want to make any of the un-pictured recipes!)  The book also has informational sections that cover the health benefits of coconut oil, details about many of the ingredients used in the book, and ten tips for living a paleo lifestyle.  Did you know that the medium-chain-triglycerides in coconut oil improve brain function and can have therapeutic effects on Alzheimer's patients?  Yeah, neither did I!