The past week has mainly been a succession of small annoyances, partly alleviated by brief #UnconfinedWalks before lunch. Cake is not a cure for any of those irritations, but it's always an acceptable thing in its own right.
A classic recipe that I had never tackled before is pineapple upside-down cake. For anyone who doesn't know, the upside down-ness is that the pineapple is baked underneath the sponge mixture, but the cake is served with the fruit side on top.
I greased and lined a tin, and laid some canned pineapple rings on the base. I used four, cutting two of them to fit. The recipe said to add some syrup that wasn't in the listed ingredients, and my pineapple had come in juice rather than in syrup. I decided to sprinkle over a tablespoon of bacardi instead. (The bottle of bacardi is old enough to be counted among #ArchivedIngredients, although its provenance can no longer be recalled.)
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| By my standards, this tin is lined very neatly |
Traditionally, the holes in the pineapple rings are filled with glace cherries, but we didn't have any (and I don't actually care for glace cherries).
For the cakey bit, I combined 50g butter, with 50g golden caster sugar and gradually added one beaten egg. It curdled (which happens to me a lot) but looked fairly OK after I'd added 75g self-raising flour with a shake of ground ginger and and another of nutmeg. A couple of tell-tale buttery lumps suggested that my creaming had been less than perfect. The mixture was fairly stiff, so I added a splash of milk.
I had wondered whether the batter would really be enough, but it covered the pineapple nicely.
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| Ready to go into the oven |
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| This photo really ought to be labelled to show the various flaws in my technique that it reveals |
After it had cooled a bit, came the moment of truth: turning the cake over to release it. Tin and contents separated cleanly with only a little shaking, and only one small chunk of cake came away when I peeled off the greaseproof paper. The top looked yellow rather than golden, probably because the lack of syrup meant that pineapple hadn't caramelised.
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| The right way up |
We ate the lot between four of us as pudding - with icecream - but really a sixth would have been an adequate portion. It wasn't quite sunshine on a plate, but it wasn't at all bad, with a faint hint of the bacardi.
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| Pineapple upside-down cake with icecream |
A couple of rings of pineapple that were left over did not go to waste. We enjoyed a retro snack of cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks.
I'm genuinely amazed that little cake worked for that much pineapple - have never made this before and I'd have guessed about double!
ReplyDeleteAlso distracted by the cheese and pineapple, which is the second time it's come up this weekend. I love that stuff.
Perhaps it worked more by luck than judgement. I should have mentioned that the recipe specifies a 7-inch tin. I was fairly sure that my tin was about the right size but I didn't actually measure it to check.
DeleteI'm confused about the reference to syrup from the tin of pineapple. I used to make pineapple upside down pudding often when the kids were still at home as it was a firm favourite of ours. I've always put golden syrup over the pineapple then it comes out sweet and gooey on the bottom. Never used the syrup that the pineapple came in, and as you say most tinned pineapple comes in fruit juice these days.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that was purely my ignorant speculation. The recipe says: 'Place syrup in base of tin and arrange drained fruit', but there is no syrup listed in the ingredients. I like the idea of using golden syrup. Someone else suggested sprinkling brown sugar over the base of the tin.
DeleteOh gosh Andrew, this takes me back. I remember having to make pineapple upside down cake (sans booze!) for a home ec exam in high school. Thank you for the trip down memory lane! :)
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome. I do recommend the addition of booze (in moderation) for those of us too old for high school.
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