Orange and Pear Upside-Down Cake

Valentine's Day fell on a Monday. I worked. Dave worked. We did our Valentine's on Sunday night instead — he cooked me a steak, which is the only cooking he does voluntarily, and we ate it at the dining room table with candles that he had bought himself at Dollar General. The kids were out at the movies. The candles were badly made and smelled like nothing. The steak was medium, which is how I like it, which he always remembers. He gave me a card that said, "I do not know how you wrote a book. Love, Dave." I gave him a card that said, "You held me up the whole time. Love, Brenda." We ate the steaks. We drank a bottle of wine. We went to bed at 9:30 because we are 44 and 45 and we have work in the morning. If someone had told me at 25 that this is what romance would look like at 44 I would have been offended. Now I know: this is the good part. This is the part the rest of it was leading to.

The preorder link for "Cab Kitchen" went live Tuesday. I did not expect this. Sarah emailed the link at 9 a.m. My name was on Amazon. Brenda Novak. My face — a photograph Dave took of me leaning against the hood of the truck in October, which I had been told was the author photo but which I somehow had not understood was going to be public — was on a webpage. Josie saw it first. She screamed. She FaceTimed her friends from the car pool line and made me turn the phone around. Tyler said, "Mom, you look tough in that picture." Justin said, "She is tough." Amber ordered a copy of the book online. First sale. I signed her receipt.

Drove a Kansas City run Thursday and Friday. Two days in Kansas, a hotel in Topeka, a pot of road chili. The chili is in the book. I ate the chili from the book in a truck in Kansas, and I am not sure what the opposite of a sealed feedback loop is, but whatever it is, that was it. I was eating my book. I was delivering my book, in a sense. The book is mine, now. It is also out there.

Gayle came over Sunday with a casserole she had made. She said, "You're working too hard." I said, "Ma, I'm fine." She said, "I brought tuna casserole." I said, "You hate tuna casserole." She said, "I know." She had made me the casserole because she loves me. She knows I love tuna casserole. She ate a small bowl to be polite. She had a piece of sheet cake for dessert — I had made one Friday for no reason, which is a thing I do sometimes now — and she said, "That cake." I said, "Yeah." She said, "Your sister would have eaten three pieces." I said, "She would have eaten the whole cake, Ma." Gayle laughed. Gayle laughed. She does that more now than she used to, and it is a sound I have come to treasure. The older she gets, the more she laughs. Not a cruelty, not a forgetting — a softening. Late-life Gayle is less armored. I am grateful.

The sheet cake I made that Friday wasn’t planned — no occasion, no reason, just flour and butter and something in me that needed to make something real with my hands after a week that had felt bigger than I knew how to hold. When Gayle sat at my kitchen table and took that first bite and said, “That cake,” I understood exactly what she meant. This Orange and Pear Upside-Down Cake is the version I keep coming back to now: fruit that softens into something almost caramel, a crumb that stays tender, and the particular satisfaction of flipping it over and finding out it turned out exactly right — which, some weeks, is all you need.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 9

Ingredients

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (for topping)
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 medium ripe pears, peeled, cored, and sliced 1/4-inch thick
1 small navel orange, peeled and sliced into thin rounds, seeds removed
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon fresh orange zest
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

Instructions

Preheat and prep the pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour the 3 tablespoons of melted butter into a 9x9-inch baking pan and tilt to coat the bottom evenly. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the butter in an even layer.
Arrange the fruit. Lay the orange rounds in a single layer over the brown sugar, then arrange the pear slices around and between them, overlapping slightly. Press gently so the fruit sits flat. Set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add eggs and flavorings. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract and orange zest.
Combine wet and dry. Stir the orange juice into the milk. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk mixture (beginning and ending with flour). Mix just until combined — do not overmix.
Fill and bake. Spoon the batter over the fruit and spread gently with a spatula to cover evenly. Bake for 38–42 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake (not the fruit layer) comes out clean and the top is golden.
Rest and invert. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for exactly 10 minutes — no longer or the topping may stick. Run a thin knife around the edges, place a serving plate firmly over the pan, and flip in one confident motion. Lift the pan away slowly. If any fruit sticks, press it back into place. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Orange and Pear Upside-Down Cake — The One I Made for No Reason