We are big fans of upside-down cakes in this house. Before I started on the Heavenly Cake Bakers adventure I used to plan one fruit-based cooked dessert each week. Often they were pies or cobblers or crumbles and if they were cakes - they'd almost always be upside-down cakes. The Rustic Fruit Desserts cookbook was my favourite cookbook for fruit based desserts. Now, I'll be adding Roses' Heavenly Cakes to the list.
Rose's version of the Pineapple Upside-down cake is wonderful and was well received around here. The tangy, lime caramel sauce cooked nicely into the fresh pineapple and cherry and created crunchy toffee like bits on the edges. I have only one complaint about this recipe, the cake part was a bit small. As I put the batter into the pan, I noticed it only came half way up the pan. Sometimes this isn't a problem because it rises a lot, but on this occasion it didn't really do that. There just didn't seem to be enough "cake" for my liking. I wonder if it would cook well enough if I doubled the cake part of the recipe.
I used a fresh pineapple, as suggested in the recipe. Then because I didn't get the core out in one straight go, I needed to core it twice, so I ended up with two holes in some slices. No problems. I included two cherries. These are morello cherries from Aldi that are bottled and allowed to dry out slightly on a paper towel.
I again succumbed to the speciality pan - suggestible child that I am. But like the last one, I do love it and as hinted above, I think I'll get plenty use from it.
And like the earlier Nordic Ware pan for the Rosebuds, I was amazed at how well it unmoulded. Nothing left behind. All the cakes had their appropriate shape and I thought it was pretty the way the cherries kind of bled into the pineapple. I do love the little pineapple fronds of cake at the top of the shape. This was a pretty easy cake and I'd put this on the "make again" list.
p.s. hopefully no one has read down this far...cause Jenn was pretty firm sounding last week ;-). Shhh. I didn't make the pineapple caramel drizzle (sounded nice but unnecessary and maybe would have sent us into a sugar coma).