Pineapple Upside Down Cake

You know it is finals time when: I randomly decide to poke my head out of my study hole and post.

This summer some friends and I initiated a dinner club. Each month 1 of us would host a dinner, come up with a theme and assign menu items. This was the dessert for out Mexican themed night (more Cal-Mex, but I certainly did not mind!). I was terrified it wouldn't work out and I would be left with a 9x13 pan of ick and no dessert to bring. Thankfully I was TERRIBLY wrong, and I had a 9x13 pan of deliciousness and a great dessert for my dinner club.Sadly, my dear friend and dinner club peer, Sam, is leaving for the Big Apple, so dinner club will likely fall to the way-side. If anyone in the No.VA area wants in to take her spot, let me know ;)

Pineapple Upside Down Cake
from laughingduckgardens.com

• canola oil to grease the pan
• 12 tablespoons (i.e. 1.5 sticks) of unsalted butter (not margarine), soften to room temperature, and divided into 9 T for the caramel/topping and 3 T for the batter
• 1.5 cups brown sugar
• 12pineapple rings - about 1-2 15-oz cans pineapple rings in juice (not in syrup)
• 4oz (1/2 of 8 oz jar) jar maraschino cherries, pitted and stemmed
• 1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoons of whole milk
• Skimpy 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoons strong vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups + 3 tablespoon of all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• Heaping 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs

Instructions:

1. Turn oven on to a temperature of 350 F

2. Oil the pan with a pastry brush (or your fingers) using up to 2 tablespoons of the canola oil. Make sure to get the corners and sides well. Do not be stingy as you want the cake to unmold easily. Roughly chop 9 tablespoons of butter and scatter at the bottom of pan. Put pan in oven while it’s preheating. Keep an eye on it, and take it out of the oven as soon as butter is melted. It should do so before the oven reaches 350 F. Put the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter in a very large bowl on the stove where it’s warm to help it soften.

3. Sprinkle the bottom of the pan with the brown sugar evenly, again making sure to reach all sides and corner. Lift the pineapple slices from the juice (reserve the juice) and arrange them in a grid pattern. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of the pineapple juice over. Sprinkle 1TBSP of maraschino liquid from the jar over the pineapple. You could push one cherry in the center of each ring now, if you want, but they’ll look better if you do this after the cake has been baked.

4. In a bowl, combine milk, the skimpy 1/2 cup canola oil and vanilla. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

5. In the very large bowl where you set it to soften, beat together the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter (which should be very soft by now) and the sugar until light and pale lemon colored. It will look “mealy”. Beat in the eggs, one by one, then add the milk mixture, and the flour mixture (1 cup at a time) beating well after each addition. Pour batter over the pineapple rings, smoothing it out as necessary. It may looks like there is no enough batter: there is!

6. Bake in the preheated oven until cake is golden and a toothpick or skewer comes out clean. I am not sure how long exactly, I believe about 40 min-1 hour ( I did not keep good track of time). It Will be about this color:

Remove from oven, let cool until you feel comfortable handling the pan.

7. Now comes the tricky part: inverting the cake. Position the cake inside a rimmed cookie sheet (rim facing up). Put another rimmed cookie sheet on top of the cake (rim facing down). The cake is now sandwiched between two rimmed cookie sheet. Clamp the two cookie sheets together and invert the cake quickly and decisively but carefully. Remove the pan from the cake carefully. If necessary, use a spatula to remove any stuck ring and put it back on the cake. Scrape any caramel from the pan and put it on the cake.

8. Push one cherry in the center of each ring.

9. Let cool and cut into squares, one for each ring