Fresh Pineapple Upside Down Cake

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Occasionally I get a craving for something warm out of the oven that's delicious and sweet. Yesterday, I went shopping and bought a fresh pineapple and thought about making a Pineapple Upside Down Cake.  I'm not a huge sweets fan so to speak, but I love desserts with fresh fruit in most recipes I've made in the past.  I found my recipe for this moist fresh Pineapple Upside Down Cake, since I already had the pineapple and had a craving for a warm slice of this delicious dessert.  I have to say it was a bit of work making it, but worth every bite!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake is a sweet American treat from the 1920's and '30's.  It was popular in the '50's  and '60's, and is again gaining in popularity.  Cooking a cake upside down is an old technique that started centuries ago when cakes were cooked in cast iron skillets and made with many different fruits until James Dole's engineers invented a machine in 1911 to cut pineapples into nice rings.

I don't use canned pineapple because nothing tastes as good as fresh pineapple!  I've also omitted the maraschino cherries because they are toxic.  Maraschino cherries were once cherries, but then are LITERALLY BLEACHED clean of their color and flavor using sulfur dioxide, calcium chloride and several other "food-safe bleaching agents", then re-dyed in Red #4 and flavored with artificial chemicals.  Almost every recipe for Pineapple Upside Down cake includes maraschino cherries, but now I would never eat them again.  It might make the cake look more colorful, but why would you want to purposely eat poison?


Recipe for Fresh Pineapple Upside Down Cake - 

Ingredients:

Pineapple Topping:

5 T. organic butter, melted

3/4 cup organic brown sugar

1/4 cup fresh pineapple juice

5-7 fresh pineapple rings or sliced pieces

Cake Batter:

1 1/2 cups organic all-purpose flour

1/2 cup organic cane sugar or coconut cane sugar

1/2 tsp. sea salt

2 tsp. baking powder

3 organic eggs

1/2 cup fresh pineapple juice

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

7 T. butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Melt 12 T. of butter and coat the inside of a 9-inch round cake pan with a bit of the butter.

3.  Mix 5 T. butter, brown sugar and 1/4 cup pineapple juice.  Place mixture in the bottom of the cake pan.  Arrange pineapple rings or sliced pieces on the brown sugar mixture.  Set pan aside.

4. Stir together flour, salt, cane sugar and baking powder.

5. Beat the eggs and stir in remaining 1/2 cup pineapple juice, vanilla, and melted butter.  Add this mixture to the flour mixture and fold in to blend.  Pour batter over the top of the pineapples.

6. Bake in oven until cake springs bake when lightly touched, about 30 minutes.

7. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Cover pan with plate and invert so pineapple side is facing up.


Serve with a dollop of whipped cream.  ENJOY!