Pineapple upside-down cake recipe: fun and utterly delicious
It’s kitsch, it’s camp, it’s ironic, it’s fun, and this Pineapple upside-down cake is undeniably delicious.
Pineapple upside-down cake is an icon. It’s your aunt’s favourite poolside caftan, a pair of oversized gold-rimmed sunglasses, a hat you bought on holiday and thought “I can pull this off, right?” It’s kitsch, it’s camp, it’s ironic, it’s fun, and it’s undeniably delicious. It’s all-occasion appropriate, seasonally agnostic, and somehow, always just the thing.
If you want to use fresh fruit and you can’t find a pineapple that’s even close to ripe (pineapples don’t ripen much after they’re picked, so if it’s not ripe at the store, it won’t ripen on your counter), this cake is great for any fruit that becomes tender but not mushy when baked: apples, pears, nectarines, peaches, apricots, plums and cherries. Blackberries might work if you don’t mind the texture of their tiny, toothsome core – but I feel raspberries would be too seedy, blueberries too juicy, and strawberries too mushy.
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RECIPE: Pineapple upside-down cake
Ingredients for the topping (which is actually the bottom)
- Cooking spray or softened butter, for greasing
- 105g (½ cup) light brown sugar
- ½ pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced about 1cm thick
- 4-6 maraschino cherries, stemmed
- 2 tablespoons dark rum or brandy (optional)
For the batter
- 290g (2 cups) plain flour
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 180g (¾ cup) buttermilk
- 105g (½ cup) vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon dark rum or brandy (optional)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 85g unsalted butter, cut into 2.5 cm pieces, at room temperature
- 220g (1 cup) granulated sugar
- 85g (½ cup) packed light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C. Spray a 23cm or 25cm cake tin with cooking spray or grease with butter. Sprinkle the sugar on the base of the cake tin. It will look like a lot of sugar, and it is, but it’s not too much, I promise.
- Mosaic the pineapple on the bottom of the cake tin, cutting pieces to fit the edges as needed. Decorate how you please with your cherries – I’m a fan of the classic single cherry in the centre of each pineapple ring. Drizzle rum over the pineapple, if using.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt together.
- In a medium bowl or a measuring cup, combine the buttermilk, vegetable oil, rum (if using) and vanilla. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle (or using a large bowl and an electric hand-held mixer), combine the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat everything together on high speed until super light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, incorporating each one before adding the next. Beat the batter until it’s almost doubled in volume and very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- With the mixer on low speed, gently beat in one-third of the flour mixture. Before it’s fully combined, add half the buttermilk mixture. Repeat with another one-third of the flour and the remaining buttermilk, and end with the remaining flour, beating until everything is well blended and no lumps remain.
- Pour the cake batter over the pineapple rings and smooth the top. Bake until the cake is golden brown, pulling away from the side of the tin, and the top springs back ever so slightly when pressed, 40-45 minutes. If your pineapple is ripe, you should also notice quite a bit of juices bubbling up on the side of the tin – this is a good sign!
- Remove the cake from the oven. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes before inverting the cake onto a large plate or platter (one that is wider than the cake tin). If needed, you can use a butter knife or offset spatula to help coax it from the pan.
Makes one 23-25cm cake
Sweet Enough: A Baking Book by Alison Roman (Hardie Grant, $55).
