I tried out this fairly kitsch recipe for a pineapple upside-down cake for the first time this week and I wanted to share the results with you all. I love how 70s retro the finished cake looked: there was a pretty hairy moment when I was trying to turn the cake out of its tin, but it slid out in one piece and looked just like I expected it to. I think it looks pretty impressive and it would be an excellent addition to a vintage tea party (check out my blog post on afternoon tea for more ideas)! I think you could probably use other fruits, such a tinned pears, or sliced apples, to decorate the top of your cake, and the sugary-buttery paste makes a lovely moist treacle-sponge-style top to the cake.
Ingredients: 1/2 cup butter, 2 cups brown sugar, 1 small tin of pineapple rings, 4 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons pineapple juice (from the tin), 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, cherries
Mix up the butter and brown sugar to make a paste and spread this around your cake tin before positioning the pineapple rings and cherries – remember that this is going to be the gooey top of your cake, so lay out your fruit in a pretty pattern! Mix the eggs, sugar and pineapple juice then sift in the flour and baking powder. Combine into a batter then carefully pour over the fruit and put into the oven for 30 minutes at 180 degrees. Check whether your cake is cooked by using a cocktail stick to test the batter – if it comes out clean, it’s cooked but if the batter sticks to the cocktail stick, put the cake back into the oven and check again after a further 5 minutes. Let the tin cool for a couple of minutes but don’t leave it too long before turning out the cake, otherwise the cake will get stuck! Run a knife around the edges of the cake tin and put a plate over the top of the tin, then turn the tin upside-down and the cake should pop out, with a pretty sugary pineapple top on show!