Thursday, end of the spring semester college student. No class, early exam tomorrow, and utilities bill due today, so what better set up of a day to bake!
Today was my attempt at a recipe from the Loveless Cafe (located in Nashville); and it was pineapple upside-down cake.
To be honest, I actually have never had pineapple upside-down cake before, BUT I do love pineapple and I can make some mean cakes when I'm in the mood, so why not? Plus, it's a good way to increase my variety of skills in cakes (since so many people love a good cake)! If you have a friend who really loves their pineapple, or "island" fruits, this would definitely be a great idea for their birthday cake.
Ingredients:
1 whole (ripe) Pineapple (If you don't want ot cut a pineapple, you can purchase one that's already been cut and cored)
1 and 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter
1/4 cup Honey
1/4 packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs
2 1/3 cups cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup milk
The first few steps were fairly easy, I had a whole pineapple, so I cut and cored it, and made the best triangular spears of pineapple that I could, which turned out to be a little bit difficult after coring it. Still, a trapezoid is triangular enough for me! Then I made ~1/4 in slices out of the spears, horizontal cuts. For the "less perfect" triangles/trapezoids, I chopped them up to use for the cake batter. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of this chopped pineapple, but I prefer more pineapple flavor, so I added about a 1/2 c. instead. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Now that the pineapple has been cut and some of it chopped, keep it to the side. It's time to make the caramel! Combine half a stick of butter, brown sugar, and honey in a 10-in cast-iron skillet. Stir. When the mixture begins to gently boil, let it boil for about 2 minutes, so that the caramel thickens. Remove from the heat. Take your pineapple triangles and arranged them in any design you'd like (I did mine in a circular arrangement), but make sure that the pineapple covers the entire bottom, and i would recommend overlapping the pineapple so it isn't too patchy. You probably will have leftover pineapple, which would be great for later snacks. ;)
For the batter, cream the remaining 1 stick of butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract until it looks 'light and fluffy.' I personally do not have an electric mixer, so I do this by hand. If you do it by hand, I would recommend a good sturdy mixing spoon (i.e. wood or plastic, I prefer wood). When the butter mixture has reached this consistency, had the eggs, one at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl after each egg. Add the flour and baking powder. At this point, the better will be really doughy and kind of tough, but bear with me (all you hand-mixers!), it will smooth out really nicely. After the flour and baking powder are well mixed in, add in the milk and chopped pineapple and stir.
Now that your batter is well-mixed, it's time to put the batter with the pineapple glaze. In order to maintain that beautiful design which you may have painstakingly worked on, you should spoon dollops of the batter on top of the pineapple, starting from the outside. Continue putting in the batter until it looks even, and your mixing bowl is empty. Before you put the skillet in the oven, get a baking sheet, and place the skillet on top of it so it will catch any juices that bubble out while the cake is baking. Bake the cake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes, or until your 'tester
toothpick' comes out clean. After you remove the cake from the oven, let it cool for about 5-10 minutes. Grab a heatproof plate or serving dish, and you are going to need to carefully invert the cake onto the dish so that it looks centered all around. And Voila! You have a delicious pineapple upside-down cake. You can serve this with sorbet, ice cream, whipped cream and maraschino cherries!
