It’s Friday so I’m having a Foodie Friday post. On New Year’s Day we had our ‘boys’ and their ladies visiting us and it was yet another marathon cooking day for me. Duncan, our eldest boy is dairy intolerant so I decided to bake a pineapple upside down cake for pudding. It’s always tasty, especially when eaten hot, and I think it looks quite good too.
I used margarine instead of butter and I don’t think it makes any difference to the flavour, but I always add some vanilla extract to a plain cake mix to make sure that there will be no eggy flavour to it.
Cooking time 1 hour
Oven temperature 350 F/ Gas Mark 4/ 180 C
Cake tin – 9 inches diameter and two inches deep
Ingredients:
Base of cake:
1 – 435g tin of pineapple rings –
glace cherries
2 oz butter of margarine
2 oz brown sugar
1 tablespoon of honey or golden syrup (I think that’s corn syrup in the US)
For the cake:
5 oz butter of margarine
5 oz sugar
3 eggs
drop of vanilla extract (optional)
6 oz self raising flour
Melt the 2 oz of margarine for the base and pour it into the cake tin. Top with the brown sugar and golden syrup/honey. Arrange the drained pineapple rings onto this mixture. Add the cherries to make a nice pattern.
For the cake:
Cream the margarine and sugar, gradually beat in the eggs and the vanilla extract. then fold in the flour. Spread this mixture over the fruit and level it. You might get some of the syrup coming up to the edge but don’t worry about that.
Bake in the oven for one hour and test to see if it’s done. It might take a bit longer as every oven is different.
Put a large plate over the cake and turn it upside down, the cake should come out with no problem. This is delicious hot, I love hot fruit and it is even better with cream or ice cream, if you aren’t dairy intolerant!
This recipe is based on one from Marguerite Patten’s Every Day Cook Book, first published in 1968. I like her recipes as she didn’t use loads of different ingredients and they were all store cupboard staples, so no need to do any special shopping for fancy stuff, which you often have to do with more modern recipes.
I had one pineapple ring left over from the tin, which I couldn’t manage to fit into the cake base. I haven’t tried any other types of fruit but obviously you could try tinned apricots, peaches or whatever you fancy.
That looks gorgeous! I can almost smell the pineapple and brown sugar!
Joan,
It is lovely but I don’t know if your vegan egg substitute would work with this recipe.
I actually think my egg substitute would work fine. It’s 2 Tbsp. flour, 1 Tsp. baking powder, 1/2 Tsp. baking soda, and 3 Tbsp. water for each egg. Whip it until frothy and add as you would the eggs. Mind, for the 3 eggs in your recipe, you would need to use 6 Tbsp. flour, 3 Tsp baking powder, etc. This works well in any cakes or cookies I make, but not, of course, as a substitute in custards or meringues.
Joan,
Thanks, that’s good to know, even for non-vegans in an emergency ‘no eggs’ situation. I think I would still add some vanilla extract into the mix, as I also don’t like that baking powder flavour that you can sometimes get, especially in biscuits.
So pretty! I love pineapple upside down cake but haven’t found a vegan version of it. I should set my husband onto figuring it out!
Stefanie,
I thought that maybe you would be using eggs from your own chickens, as they would be free range and living a good life, or are they going to be more like pets?
This was one of the recipes I first learnt to bake by myself when I was a kid!! So delicious!!
One note – as a Brit living in the US, corn syrup is not a substitute for golden syrup, there really is no alternative in my opinion. I order it on Amazon!
Liz,
It’s certainly a favourite with my family.
That’s interesting about the corn syrup, I have no idea what that is like but I think someone mentioned it as a possible substitute, obviously it isn’t! Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment.
Katrina
I used to make this when I was in my teens. I will make it again soon it was delicious it was a Margaret Pattern recipe. I visited a National Trust place today which had a 1950s kitchen and they had a few of this amazing cooks recipe books. So inspired me to google pineapple upside down pudding Thank you
Josephine,
I do this for pudding quite a lot, and I’ve also tried doing it with tinned pears instead of the pineapple, and cocoa added to the cake mixture as pears and chocolate flavour go well together. The recipes in her books are lovely and also don’t feature a huge list of ingredients as more modern books often do. Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment.
Katrina