A brief history of the Pineapple Upside Down Cake (my new favourite)

In my last post I listed a handful of hobbies I have collected and pretty much failed at over recent years. Obviously some people actually read my last post as I have been kindly reminded of some that I have missed, so I thought it was best to just add these in:

• My brief love affair with my local WI group – didn’t work out, too much homeopathy and not enough Jam & Jerusalem
• Refurbishing my 1980’s Raleigh bike (& learning to ride it) – so in a mad, probably wine induced moment, I bought an old, rusty but very cool Raleigh bike on social media. I was going to help The Husband refurbish it to its previous glorious state. It now lives in the loft, in bits (rescheduled for Summer 2017).
• Sweets making – I thought I could make sweets… I can’t! I lost a great saucepan that day.

I am sure I will be reminded about others I have missed, or chosen to forget about, but I will update as they come up.

The Bake of the Week!

So I started baking again towards the end of 2016 and one of the problems I faced was, if I bake it, I would need to eat it and my waistline would not like it. The answer was to inflict my cakes on the lovely people I work with. I am pretty sure they think it’s the best idea I have ever had (and possibly will have).

Once I had baked my old favourites (lemon cake anyone?), I opened up the floor to requests. Maybe this was stupid but just maybe I would enjoy the challenge. The Swiss Roll was a success so I took another request…..

The Pineapple Upside Down Cake recipe came from The Clandestine Cake Club cookbook bought to you by founder of the CCC, Lynn Hill.  A simple to follow recipe which, if you actually pay attention when you read it, has a helpful suggestion of adding rum to the topping. I missed this bit – how I missed it I don’t know – but next time will use an extra shot to make up for it.

According to the book this cake dates back to 1920s America, when canned pineapple first appeared on shop shelves. When writing this I obviously got a tad side-tracked with The Google and the history of the cake. So, while baking upside down is a century old technique (The Google), the pineapple version dates bake to sometime after 1903 when, what is now known as Dole Pineapple, invented canned pineapple (http://www.foodreference.com/). The company ran a contest on how to use their canned pineapple and, out of 60,000 recipes received, over 2,500 were for a version of upside down cake. The cake was born and having baked it I completely understand why it is still around!

So back to the cake. I actually baked two – it seemed rude not to (and a waste of half a pineapple). Once out of the oven it was hard not to devour both cakes, but The Husband and I made do with just half of one between us. When it’s just out of the oven, warm, moist and smelling delicious it’s hard to resist. When it’s cold, moist and smelling delicious it’s easier to share, but just as delicious.

Would I bake it again? Hell yes! Easy to follow, idiot proof recipe and delicious results.

Did it go down well at work? I think so, there was none left by the end of the day… win!

Would I be willing to share it again? Possibly, unless I eat it all first, that is always the risk.

So til next time, if you can’t eat cake just drink wine instead.

Grace

PS – How ace do my green splash backs look?