You can use any kind of fruit for this style of cake. I usually use apple, and I have used both fresh and the pie apple you get in a tin, but there was tin of pie apricot in the cupboard so I went with that.
Peach or pineapple also make a lovely cake and I think strawberry and rhubarb would be stunning.
Pie fruit is great value – I know it’s not fresh but there are no fresh apricots in September and the fruit is Australian 🙂 I think they must use the reject eating fruit for the tins. The flavour is not compromised, in fact it is surprisingly luscious, and the value is great – the whole tin is packed with gorgeous fruit and no juice!
The walnuts are fresh-in-the-shell from Tasmania. Our local greengrocer has been selling sacks of them for the last month or so and they are irresistable. I just shelled and broke up a handful for the cake.
Basic, and I mean very basic upside-down cake principles here: well buttered tin, a sprinkle of about 1/2 cup soft brown sugar on the bottom, sprinkle of nuts and a tipping of the fruit on top! On goes a basic butter cake batter and the whole lot baked for about 40-50 minutes.
I left the cake to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, loosened the sides (it’s a spring-form pan) and turned it out to cool.
The butter and sugar caramelise to form a sticky glaze for the fruit and nuts. Some people take the time to arrange the fruit and nuts in lovely patterns – like that old favourite, pineapple upside-down-cake with a cherry in each pineapple hole, but really, nowadays, with so much lovely things about, unless you really loved glace cherries or something, well, you probably wouldn’t (or would, nothing wrong with re-creating old-fashioned nostalgic favourites – I’m all for it actually)
Delicious!
sweetrosie 
Oho! Now I see where the walnuts go. Mmm. That really looks good.
Mmmm… looks good. Do you have a pie recipe to share?