Pineapple upside down cake

All these years of blogging, all these cakes I've made... and I've never posted a pineapple upside down cake recipe! It's kinda retro and old fashioned, apparently, but I've never understood how anything can be "in fashion" or "outdated" when it comes to food - especially if it's a tasty, delicious recipe. Who cares if it's from the '70s or the '50s or the '80s? For heaven's sake, it's FOOD, not fashion. It annoys me tremendously when some idiot foodista or television chef somewhere labels a particular greens or grain or fruit as "fashionable" or "healthy" or "THE must-have item", and the entire bleddy food blog world immediately features it, so that there is a landslide of samey same posts. I dislike food fads with a passion! Okay, my soapbox rant is over for today. 

So, pineapple cake. I only made it because Pete bought a bag of fresh pineapple "fingers" that was so acidic and sharp, it could have stripped the enamel from your teeth no problem. He then had the brainwave of making pineapple upside down cake. Or rather, getting me to make it. Since I had a simple, one-bowl sort of recipe (based on a BBC Good Food recipe) for this cake, I acceded to his request. 

While the recipe called for pineapple syrup and vanilla extract to flavour the cake, I didn't have either ingredient, my pineapple being fresh rather than canned. But there was enough pineapple juice at the bottom of the bag, which I substituted for the syrup. And then simply ignored the fact that there was no vanilla extract in my store cupboard. It didn't matter, anyway. The cake smelt amazing as it baked, so fragrant and pineappley, and it tasted as beautiful as it smelt. I love this cake - I just can't understand why it took me so long to post the recipe!

Recipe for: Pineapple upside down cake

Ingredients: 

For the topping

50 gm softened butter

50 gm soft light brown sugar

Fresh pineapple fingers or tinned pineapple slices

For the cake

100 gm softened butter

100 gm soft light brown sugar

125 gm plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 large eggs
2 tbsp pineapple juice

1 tsp vanilla extract (if you have it)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. 

2. Beat the butter and sugar for the topping until soft and creamy. Spread this as best as possible around the bottom and halfway up the sides of a 7" round cake pan. 

3. Arrange the pineapple slices and cherries (if using) over this such that the entire bottom of the tin is covered with as few spaces as possible. 

4. In a big bowl, add all the cake ingredients and beat until the batter is soft and smooth, and the ingredients well mixed. 

5. Drop the batter by spoonfuls over the pineapple rings and spread evenly to cover.

6. Bake for 30-45 minutes until a tester inserted in the cake comes out clean. The cake could take longer than 45 minutes, or be done in less. Test at 35 minutes, then every 5-7 minutes until it is cooked. 

7. Let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a serving plate. Eat warm, with or without vanilla ice cream.