Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Pineapple Upside-Down cake is one of those desserts that I absolutely love, but usually forget about. The sweetness of the pineapple is a perfect compliment to cake, and as I was baking this I found myself thinking, "Whoever came up with this idea was a wonderful human being". In case you can't tell, food is one of my favorite things.

I used another recipe from AllRecipes.com. I liked that it calls for fresh pineapple, and not the canned stuff (though canned will work fine). I was never a pro at cutting pineapple- in fact when I buy them I usually cut them in chucks and eat the fruit off the rind. Fairly caveman of me I'll admit, but it gets the job done. I wasn't sure of the best way to cut a pineapple (even though my Mom showed me at one point not too long ago), so I looked it up. they realyl do have websites for everything now! I found http://www.howtocutapineapple.com/. I made sure to pick a nice and ripe pineapple, but less ripe might be easier to slice. This one was super juicy, which made for a slippery cutting board.

Start by cutting off and top and bottom of the fruit.

Stand the pineapple on it's end and slice off the rind. Go back and pick out the rind "pits" that are left behind.

While on its side, slice the fruit as thick or thin as you want.

You're ready to begin the cake!

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 fresh pineapple - peeled, cored and cut into rings
Whipped Cream, for topping


You can pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees now, or wait until you've started getting the cake together. it was earth day, so I waited, knowing that my oven might sit at 400 for an hour with nothing in it. Not only was this a new recipe (that I had to document with pictures) but I was listening to music. I tend to stop what I'm doing and sing along. It makes baking way more time consuming that it needs to be, but even more fun!

Melt 5 1/2 Tbs of the butter.

Use a bit to coat the bottom of a 9" round cake pan.

 Combine the rest with the dark brown sugar and 1/4 cup of the pineapple juice. Pour into the pan. Add pineapple rings- you will use about 5.

Stir together the flour, salt, white sugar, and baking powder. Set aside. I love how many different shades of white you see in baking. I tried to capture 3 of them here.

Separate the eggs. Beat the whites until stiff but not dry.  I'm never quite sure what this means, because I've never really felt that my egg whites are "stiff". I've replaced "stiff" with "foamy" when I cook or bake. I have no idea if I could be better, but hey, it works! There is some interesting information on this topic if you click here. Perhaps one day, I'll perfect my egg handling. I CAN poach them now!

Beat two of the egg yolks until lemony yellow. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup pineapple juice, vanilla, and remaining melted butter.

 Add this mixture to the flour mixture. Gently fold in the (foamy!) egg whites.

Pour batter over the top of the brown sugar and pineapple rings.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes then cover pan tightly with a serving dish and invert so that the pineapple side is up. Do this last part over a paper towel or something... juice ran out all over my stove. I was sad to see it go. What a mess!

Slice, top with freshly whipped cream, and serve!

I made myself wait until morning to try a slice of this cake; I wanted natural night to take a picture of it in its entirety before I cut into it. Let me tell ya, it was well worth the wait. Another success!