Pineapple upside down cake – a School Dinner recipe

Pineapple upside down cake

I loved being upside down.

Handstands should have given me ample opportunity to be upside down but they weren’t enough. Somewhere on most school grounds there was a metal handrail that called out to be swung on and rolled around. We weren’t bothered that the tarmac underneath was hard and neither was anyone else. If someone else had got to the bars first there was often a tree branch or a school fence that could be used to support our views of an upside down world. Hanging on just by your knees with your hands waving at your friends is one of the most carefree feelings I can remember. Turning upside down after pineapple upside down cake was not always a good idea. What you really needed to do was sit still and let it all go down. We didn’t of course and the sticky sweetness of this cake gave us huge amounts of energy that needed to be run off.

Exotic and exciting with a much loved sticky coating. Glace cherry lovers chose their seats carefully. Nestling between several cherry haters could gain you up to half a dozen extra red jewels on your plate. Taking the time to eat around the pineapple ring, saving the juice drenched sponge underneath was bliss.

Line a rectangular tin 6” x 10” with baking parchment.

Ingredients

3 eggs weighed in their shells

An equivalent weight of caster sugar

An equivalent weight of self raising flour

An equivalent weight of butter or margarine

1 tbsp pineapple juice

1 can pineapple rings or half a fresh pineapple cored and cut into rings or chunks.

3 glace cherries quartered. Fresh cherries would work here too, just pit them carefully.

2 tbsp soft brown sugar

Vanilla extract

How to…. Heat the oven to 190C

1. Line the base of the tin with parchment to prevent the pineapples and sugar from welding themselves to the tin.
2. Drain the pineapple rings and reserve 1 tbsp of juice, or cut the fresh pineapple into rings/chunks.
3. Sprinkle the brown sugar onto the parchment and lay out the pineapple rings evenly. Adorn the centre of each ring with half a glace cherry cut side up for the best aesthetics. If using chunks then spread the glace cherries out evenly.
4. Weigh the eggs in their shells; now weigh out an equal weight to the eggs of sugar, butter and self raising flour.
5. Cream together the butter and sugar until the mixture becomes paler in colour and lighter in texture.
6. Beat in the eggs one at a time. If the mixture starts to look a little grainy add a spoonful of the weighed out flour.
7. Fold in the remaining flour carefully. Slacken the mixture with 1 tbsp of the reserved pineapple juice and a half tsp of vanilla extract. If you use the fresh pineapple and have no juice, milk will do fine.
8. Spoon the mixture into the tin evenly and smooth out trying not to disturb the cherries.
9. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden and well risen. Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes. Turn out and carefully peal back the paper to reveal the cake in all its golden and glistening glory.

This recipe is one of many take from Good Old fashioned School Dinners by Becky Thorn Pub by Anova

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