Pineapple Upside-down Cake * Cake Slice Bakers*

An upside cake using apples, pears, peach or pineapples win me over always. A pineapple upside cake more for the beauty of the pineapple slices with maraschino cherries. I am not fond of these sweetened cherries but for the looking good factor, they are surely in. And yes, the Pineapple Upside Down Cake was the choice of the Cake Slice Bakers this month.

The web says that pineapple upsidedown cakes were originally made in skillets and cooked on a stove rather than baked in an oven. The Hawaian Pineapple Company held a pineapple recipe contest in 1925 and the best 100 recipes would be published. It is said among the over 50, 000 recipes received, more than 2000 were pineapple upside down cake recipes.Probably it is since then that they became popular.  

I love this dessert but preferably with fresh pineapple slices rather than the canned ones. The recipe calls for canned ones , which I thought were rather tasteless.

1  can pineapple rings, in juice

50g butter

140g dark brown sugar

10 maraschino or glace cherries

180g plain flour

155g caster sugar

1½ tsp baking powder

½ salt

110ml milk

50g butter, softened

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp pineapple juice from can

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Drain the pineapple well, reserving 2 tablespoons of the juice for the cake batter. Melt the butter in a 10inch/25cm cast iron skillet over medium heat. Or, melt the butter and pour it over the base of a 9inch/23cm round cake tin.

Remove the pan from the stove and sprinkle the brown sugar over the buttery surface. Place the pineapple rings carefully on top of the scattered brown sugar and melted butter, arranging them so they fit in 1 layer. (You may have a few left over). Place a cherry in the centre of each ring, and set the pan aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and gently mix. Add the milk and butter and beat well with a mixer, scraping down the bowl once or twice until you have a thick, fairly smooth batter, about 1 minute.

Add the egg, reserved pineapple juice and the vanilla and beat until well incorporated, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides.

Carefully pour the batter over the pineapple and use a spoon to spread it evenly to the edges of the pan. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until the cake is golden brown and springs back when touched lightly in the centre. Cool in the skillet or pan for 5 minutes on a wire rack.

When the pan is still hot, run a knife around the edge of the pan to release any cooling caramel and use oven gloves to carefully invert the warm cake onto a serving plate.

A very easy recipe and you know the end result is going to be yummy considering the brownsugar caramelized pineapple slices and yes it turns out as good as you hoped it to be. I baked mine in a springform pan.The crumb was tender and moist and the caramely crsuted edges were nice to bite into. Overall I would either reduce the amount of brown sugar or the sugar that went into making the cake batter because it was a tad bit too sweet. I would use this recipe but would replace canned pineapple slices with fresh pineapple slices seeped in sugar syrup. Overall it is a very moist and a lovely dessert to end a meal!