Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
Description
Not exactly what all of our mother’s used to make, and I’m not just talking about the rum! I used a 10-inch cake pan (and all of the rum!) and this was divine. Smitten Kitchen also insists on using fresh pineapple which is the whole point – enjoy!
Ingredients
Topping
~1/2 a pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced into rings
6 T. (85 g) butter AND 3/4 c. (145 g) brown sugar
Cake
1 1/2 c. (190 g) flour
2 t. baking powder AND 1/4 t. salt
6 T. (85 g) butter, softened AND 1 c. sugar
2 eggs AND 1 t. vanilla AND 1 T. dark rum (we love Gosling’s)
1/2 c. unsweetened pineapple juice
2 T. + dark rum for sprinkling on after the cake is turned out
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350, butter a 10-inch round cake pan, line it with parchment and butter the parchment – alternatively, you can use a well-seasoned 10-inch cast iron skillet if you have one.
For the topping – melt the butter in a skillet, add the brown sugar and then simmer and stir over medium heat for 4 minutes. Remove this mix from the heat, scrape it into your prepared pan and then tightly and evenly arrange the pineapple slices on top.
For the cake – whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set this aside. Using your electric mixer, beat the butter on it’s own for a few minutes until fluffy, then gradually beat in the sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla and rum.
Add in half of the dry mix and mix on low until just blended, then beat in the pineapple juice. Add in the remaining flour mix and beat until just blended – the batter will likely look a little curdled and not smooth. Carefully spread the cake batter evenly over the pineapple and then bake for 40 to 45 minutes until a tester comes out of the middle clean. Just do your best, with the pineapple and sauce, this is a tough one to try and figure out! Leave the cake to rest in it’s pan for 5 minutes, then place a platter over the top and invert the cake onto it – I also left this clamped together for a couple of minutes to allow all of the juices to flow.
Remove the cake pan, replace any stuck pineapple bits and scrape out all salvageable sauce. Place the warm cake (on it’s platter) on a rack to help it to cool and sprinkle on the rum. Serving this warm is our first choice, but no one will complain about room temperature.
