Day Twelve: Let Them Eat MORE Cake!

Hiya folks!

I'm extremely over-caffienated, so it seems like a perfect time to write a blog post, yeah? yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

So. Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Let's get ready to rumble!

The recipe
The cake bit is very loosely based on this recipe for yellow cake.
1/2 C All Purpose Flour
1/4 C + 1T Sugar
1/2 T Butter
1/8 C Oil
1/8 C Almond Milk
1 Egg
1 1/2 pinches Baking Powder
1 Small pinch salt
1 cap full vanilla
1 Pineapple ring

Put the butter in the bottom of the pan and put the pan into the warming chamber of the EBO to soften while you mix the cake batter.

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) in a medium sized mixing bowl and whisk together to combine.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar and egg, then add the oil, almond milk, and vanilla and whisk to combine.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk (or use an electric beater) until the batter is smooth and lump free.

Note: this will make enough batter for two, maybe three EBO sized cakes, depending on how full you fill the pans. That's about as small as I could make the recipe without a scale to weigh ingredients and trying to divide the egg.

Pull the pan out of the warming chamber and smoosh (Very Technical Culinary Term) the softened butter around the bottom and sides of the pan. Sprinkle the remaining 1 Tablespoon of sugar evenly over the bottom and sides, and slide the pan into the oven. Set the timer for 10 minutes. When you pull the pan out, the butter will have melted and the sugar will have started to caramelize around the edges, but will still be relatively grainy.



Then, place the pineapple ring on top of the sugar/butter...



And then pour the batter on top of the pineapple. I learned from the pancakes, and didn't fill the pan all the way to the top.



I discovered something tonight... My oven timer will only go to 19 minutes. When I tried to set it to 20 minutes, it just went back to zero. Weird. So, I set it for 15 minutes, checked it, and then put it back in for another 10 because it was still kind of wet on top in the middle.

When it came out, it looked like this:





Not bad, yeah?

The cake was still a LITTLE gooey in the middle. It wasn't bad, but I think I could probably let it cook another 5 minutes and it would have been just a little better. I was really happy with how the sugar melted into the pineapple and the cake.

Was this the Pineapple Upside Down Cake of my childhood? No. But I am pretty flipping pleased with the results regardless, and I think with the slightly longer cooking time this will be as close to perfect as you can get from an EBO dessert.

I think you could probably easily adapt this recipe to use Splenda for the sugar used IN the cake, but you will still need to use real sugar for the bottom. Or top, depending on how you look at it. I was also glad that the almond milk worked well, because I'm kind of thinking that you could use a vegan egg substitute for the one egg and make this whole recipe entirely vegan.

I split the cake with a friend, and we enjoyed our dessert with some iced coffee. It was the perfect serving, I think, and a great little late night snack.

OOh! Four minutes to midnight. I need to hit publish NOW.

Tomorrow is another adventure, folks. Gird your loins!