I invited my brother and his family over for brunch on Sunday because it would have been our Mom’s 76th birthday on Friday (we try to get together each year for this occassion). I decided on making an old favourite: Pineapple upside down cake with home made Caramel Sauce because I remembered it to be one of my brother’s favourites (as it turned out, he said he didn’t even remember the dessert, sigh!) The caramel sauce was one I spotted in a blog some time ago, and it’s made entirely in the microwave…so easy. I won’t bother replicating the recipe because Tracey has some wonderful, fool proof, step by step photos. Note that the age of your microwave will have an enormous effect on timing (mine is at least 20 years old, but it still works and I can’t be bothered to change it — it hides in my microwave cabinet in my newish kitchen, seldom used). The sauce is down right amazing. Make it. I’m not kidding. Even if you have nothing to drizzle it on, just make it. The only thing I changed was that instead of using heavy cream, I used fat free Carnation Evaporated Milk to help reduce some of the calories. The kids didn’t even notice! They took leftovers home. You may use this recipe or any old white cake recipe you can find. I didn’t want 20 cakes, so I actually halved the original recipe.
Pineapple Upside Down Cake and Home Made Caramel Sauce
Makes 10 cupcake-sized cakes
Recipe adapted from A Guide to Good Cooking, Five Roses Flour, twenty fifth edition, 1983
sticky, gooey, sweet caramel...you old smoothie
Ingredients:
- 212 g (3/4 cups) all purpose floour
- 7.5 mL (1/2 tbsp) baking powder
- 1 mL (1/4 tsp) salt
- 67.5 mL (1/4 cup) butter
- 125 g (1/2 cup) sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2.5 mL (1/2 tsp) vanilla
- 87.5 m (5/16 cup milk, just a bit more than 1/4!)
- 67.5 mL (1/4 cup) butter
- 125 g (1/2 cup) brown sugar
- 6-7 slices of pineapple (I used fresh, but you can certainly use canned, if you do, you may want to use the syrup instead of milk in the batter)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside.
- Cream the butter with sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy (about 6 minutes).
- Blend in dry ingredients alternating with the milk beginning and ending with dry.
- Prepare 10 muffin tins by generously spraying with non-stick cooking spray.
- Melt the second butter with the brown sugar in a microwave proof bowl. Stir well. Distribute into 10 prepared muffin tins evenly.
- Slice the pineapple into smallish bits that will fit into each tin. Place one slice in each tin, pressing down into the brown sugar mixture.
- Evenly distribute the cake batter into the 10 tins. Give is a bit of a shake to remove bubbles. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Cool for about 5-6 minutes (not too long, though) and invert so that the gooey caramel created by the brown sugar still comes out clean. Drizzle what ever brown sugar mixture remains in the pan over each cake.
- Serve with home made Caramel Sauce, bits of pineapple and whipped cream. Hide the rest because your guests will want doggy bags.
Can you just taste it?
Kitcheninspirations 