Thursday, February 26, 2009

nummer nums recipe (pretend I didn't write that)

Oh yeah, I forgot, pineapple upside down cake recipe from EC:

preheat oven to 350
 
it's 1 can of pineapple rounds in juice (save 1/4 cup juice),
1 & 3/4 sticks of butter
1 cup of brown sugar packed down, 
2 eggs,  
1/2 cup of milk, 
2 teaspoons baking powder, 
1 1/2 cups flour, 
1 cup white sugar, 
I use those insane marischino cherries from cortis, seven of them to be exact, and I drizzle a little of the syrup on there too. 
I put in a dash of salt, (if you use unsalted butter, put in 1/4 tsp salt, otherwise a dash is fine)
vanilla and almond extract too.
I have used rum instead on occasion and that is good too.
 
You melt a stick of butter in the bottom of the cake pan on the stovetop, then turn it off and add the brown sugar, mush it up, then add 1/4 cup of the pineapple juice from the can and turn on the heat and make sure it all disolves.  Then, off the heat, you put the pineapple rounds in a pattern on the bottom and put the cherries in the middle of each round.  Because there are still 3 rounds of pineapple in the can... I just put those in too, but no cherries because they will be deeper in the cake  Then you make the batter (which should be strangely thick) and you dump it on top without messing up the brown sugar mush or the pineapples.    The batter is so thick that you kind of just push it down to try to spread it out.   it is going to look fucked up, but it rises, and expands and don't worry about it, it will end up ok.  Whatever you do, don't add extra milk to the thick batter just to thin it out.  I have done this several times cause it looks weird, and it makes the cake crumble too much.
 
You make the batter by mixing the flour, white sugar, milk, flavorings, 3/4 cup of melted butter and eggs together,  finally at the end you add the baking powder (cause it starts working immediately, so you don't want to add it til the last second) then you mix it up real good and throw it in the pan.
 
You bake it for 45 -50 minutes or til a toothpick in center comes out clean.  then you get a big plate (bigger than your cake pan) and you carefully and quickly put the plate on top of the cake pan and flip it upside down.  It always unmolds very very easily for me.  I have never had a problem.   I think it's because this receipe uses melted butter in the batter. 
 
My mom made ours in a big cast iron skillet, which helps the brown sugar carmelize more, but it's heavier to flip.  I use a cake pan cause I'm lazy.

When I've make it I've used a 12 inch skillet. I guess you could use a 9 inch cake pan instead?  It's kind of flat from the skillet.  And I don't put as much white sugar, and I increase the salt a bit, but that's because I prefer salty to sweet.


2 comments:

beckler said...

and I also substituted buttermilk for the milk, because I like to sneak buttermilk into things. Surprise!

beckler said...

ganglians show tonight!