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I’ve always wanted to try pineapple upside down cake. Everyone I know who has ever tried it has loved it. A lot. It’s the sort of recipe that you mention and people’s eyes light up and their mouths go slack and you see the first sparkle of drool just starting to show and you know that it must be a very good thing.
And then you spend the next six months piecing together recipes that you find and coming up with something you suppose will be good.
And it is.
And you become one of the bright-eyed, slack mouthed, sparkle-drool people who get excited when the recipe is mentioned in the future.
Unfortunately, February’s weather has declared war on my food photography.
It also hasn’t helped my cause that I’ve had all kinds of unphotogenic baking experiences this month–Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake, an ugly-but-delicious sweet potato/white potato gratin, very most especially hideous-but-tasty cookies…I could go on…but I won’t.
I’ll just get to the goods. Just bear in mind that the weather was whining on the day that I made the cake, so this is the best the pictures got!
Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
Printable Recipe
Ingredients:
1c packed brown sugar
1/2c butter
1 (20oz) can pineapple slices
For cake:
1 3/4c sugar
1c butter at room temperature
3/4c sour cream
4 eggs
3/4tsp vanilla
1 1/2c flour + 3 Tbsp cornstarch
6Tbsp ground almonds
3/4tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt
Directions:
Make topping by melting sugar and butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves and mixture is bubbly. Try not to overcook, as mixture will lump or be hard. Bleh. Pour mixture into a 10″ pan sprayed heavily with cooking spray. Arrange pineapple slices over the caramel mixture.
To make cake, beat sugar and butter together till light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating after each egg. Beat in vanilla. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, ground almonds, baking powder and salt. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the sugar/butter mixture. Add half of the sour cream, 1/3 of the flour, other half of sour cream and last of the flour. Pour batter over caramel and pineapple in the pan.
Bake at 325 for 60-80 minutes or until cake tests clean with a toothpick. Allow cake to rest in pan on top of a cooling rack for about 10 minutes. Invert onto a platter or plate.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Dear Emily,
I need to tell you that your recipe for Pineapple Upsidedown Cake is (by far) the best recipe on the net. I do not believe most people understand the concept of this American classic–the entire cake should be saturated with the brown sugar caramel upon completion. Most recipies I have seen or sampled at various ‘get-togethers’ are boring and dry. My definition of ‘dry’ does not mean that the cake itself is dry; however, the layer of cake underneath the ‘topping’ is unsaturated. Most people cop-out and use a boxed-brand yellow cake mix–I like how your batter is homemade and similar to that of a sour cream cake (one of the most delicious, moist, and most importantly porous cakes you can eat.) The only steps I adjusted from your recipe were the uses of a cast iron skillet and a fresh pineapple, which I begin to caramelize in the candy syrup before adding the batter. Also, adding the cake batter to the bubbling caramel allows the sugar molecules to attach themselves to the fat in the batter (the butter, sour cream and eggs) and begins to melt or emulsify into the cake mixture allowing for a better distribution and saturation of said candy syrup throughout the finished product. Anyways, besides me babbling, the point was to tell you that I really-REALLY love your recipe and will share it with my friends and family. I am not just giving them the recipe, but I am forcing them to visit your website to retrieve it for themselves. Thank you for being you and thank you for not using the cake-in-a-box method but for using the ‘food-of-love’ method–HOMEMADE!
Sincerely,
RMK