Piña Upside Down Cake

When I was kid and we lived in Venezuela, we had a family favourite restaurant that was a large circular thatched roof building that we nicknamed "the circle restaurant". Unfortunately, I have no idea what the real name of the restaurant was, because that nickname became its sole name in our family. Anyway, this restaurant was our go-to. It had absolutely delicious meals, but my favourite part about this restaurant was that at the centre of it was a bar. Now, I know I was far too young to drink alcohol (ages 4-9), but I became addicted to Shirley Temple beverages. Fortunately for me, my parents let me venture to the bar to get all the maraschino cherries I wanted from the bar tender.

I can't believe the amount of maraschino cherries I likely consumed as a child. 🤢

While I ate maraschino cherries in Shirley Temple drinks, my other half only had maraschino cherries in pineapple upside down cakes. That was one of his favourite cakes that is mom would make when he was younger.

Well, we have been together for over five years and I never wanted to make him a pineapple upside down cake. I have never tried a pineapple upside down cake, but, the concept of fruit from a can going into a cake just really turned me off. Mostly because my poor mother tried to push canned fruit at her daughters by adding them to our lunchboxes more often than any child would like.

However, I decided that now is as good as a time as ever to make his favourite childhood cake. I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised by how great this cake actually ended up being.

Normally, maraschino cherries go only inside of the pineapple slices, but I decided to add an extra cherry in the centre so that my layout doesn't look that empty.

The recipe that I got for this recipe was originally from AllRecipes, but that recipe seemed just too complicated. So, I found another, much easier recipe via The Kitchn. It was a super simple recipe that worked out really well for us.

This lady who really doesn't like the idea of canned fruit came to really enjoy this cake!

Here's the recipe if you didn't click on the link for the Kitchn.

Ingredients:

Toppings

• Cooking spray (I used coconut)

• 4 Tbsp unsalted butter

• 1/2 cup brown sugar

• 1 can pineapple in juice

• 7 maraschino cherries

Cake

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter

• 2 large eggs

Instructions:

1. First, turn on the oven to preheat at 350F and prepare your baking dish for the cake.

2. Next, in a small sauce pan, heat brown sugar and butter over medium heat. Cook mixing frequently until mixture begins to bubble and darken in color.

3. Pour brown sugar mixture into your prepared baking dish. Using a spatula, evenly coat mixture in pan. Allow to cook slightly.

4. Open pineapple can and place pineapple on the brown sugar mixture. Next, place cherries inside of each pineapple. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pineapple juice in the can and set aside.

5. Whisk together dry ingredients for the cake and set aside.

6. In another bowl, mix together butter and sugar using a hand mixer or whisk. Mix well, then add eggs and continue to mix thorough until smooth.

7. Add the flour mixture to the wet cake ingredients and mix with whisk (or mixer) in batches. Alternate between each batch of flour with part of the pineapple juice. Continue to mix well while alternating between flour and juice until batter is smooth.

8. Pour cake batter mixture over the pineapple and cherries. Ensure that the cake batter is smooth.

9. Bake for 45 minutes or until brown and tooth pick comes out clean when testing doneness.

10. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before flipping cake over on serving plate.

You can enjoy this cake warm or as Shojo prefers it: cool. He loves this cake (or any cake for that matter) with tea time at 17:00.

17:00 tea time snacks is something I have yet to do. It is a very Indian thing to do. Maybe after we visit his parents or go to India, I will be able to start with this tea time snack business too. We shall see.

I really am quite impressed by the cake. I am really impressed by the use of the pineapple juice inside the batter.

Pineapple juice is one of the best juices to sip on. It is so sweet, yet has some tartness to it due to the acidity that pineapples have. So, adding it to the cake batter is truly fantastic!

Well, I can happily say that S thought I did very well for a first time upside down pineapple cake maker. He even said that if I were to make it again, he likely wouldn't be able to tell between his moms recipe and mine. I am rather chuffed by that statement alone.

So, the moral of this story that I have learnt is to listen to my husband more. His ideas about what we should make for a dessert or for dinner are not bad ideas but usually good ones.

I hope you all make this recipe if you haven't had one before.

Enjoy!