Apple Upside Down Cake Update

Typically when I've made a recipe and I decide it needs some kind of retooling I don't try it again for some time. Sometimes I need to do some research or I have a bunch of other stuff to make, sometimes I don't want to eat it again too soon or I just don't want to deal with whatever it needs. But I remade that apple upside down cake a bit more quickly than normal. And I learned a valuable lesson, too. Namely, bundt pans aren't very good for making upside down cake in. My dreams of fluted, caramel covered cake are simply not meant to be. Well, at least not in this format. Maybe some kind of sauce... Anyway, I made it again pretty quickly because it tasted wicked good. This time it was even better, thanks to a few changes. Namely not halving the cake part of the recipe and adding toasted pecans and raspberries. I'm not going to go over each step again, since it wasn't so long ago that I made the original. But I will show what I did differently.

First, like I said, I added toasted pecans. Right in the caramel. This added a great flavor/texture. They were salted, which worked out nicely. I did the apples the same, trusting the extra batter to cover/ hold them in place. But, after adding half the batter I added a layer of fresh raspberries. Not squished or anything, just whole. I still halved the caramel portion, figuring there would be plenty since there was so much less top to a bundt cake than a regular cake. And there was plenty of caramel... sort of. Using the whole recipe meant leaving the cake in the oven much longer which browned it up nicely. Added some flavor depth. It still didn't cover the apples quite all the way, but at least it didn't split into pieces when I got it out. Which was a hassle since this time the caramel stuck even more, making the cake, once again, ugly. I wound up peeling the caramel off the bottom of the pan and kind of patting it onto the cake. But it was worth it, for this. This was wicked good. I'm going to be working on this recipe, we'll see what happens. The pecans and berries were a great addition, but I might try it with mixed berries next time. I bet bananas and walnuts would be good. Or vanilla in the caramel and chocolate chips in the cake...