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Saturday, July 10, 2010

Upside Down Pineapple Cake 1

I hate making caramel. I remembered, during my teens, I tried making crème caramel, and oh, how bitter was the caramel.

This time, I did it with 3 attempts. And I’d say, I’m not all that satisfied with it.


I used demerara sugar, that has larger granules than regular sugar.

1st attempt: Didn’t grind the sugar, therefore it took a long time for the sugar to melt. And when it finally did, the caramel was burnt. I didn’t realize that until I filled my baking pans with it, and tasted it later. Urgh!!! Bitter!!! I waited for the caramel to harden, that didn’t take long. Cracked it and discarded them.

2nd attempt: Grind the sugar. But I cooked the caramel slightly too long and it burnt. The first 2 pans didn’t taste burnt, but as the caramel remained in the pan(on top of stove, heat off) as I filled the others, it burnt. I threw away all the caramel again.

3rd attempt: I really tried to be careful. And I removed it away from the stove when the sugar has melted and there’s a little bit of visible liquid butter. I continued to stir until the butter is no longer visible. The first 6 pans were ok, last 2 were a bit burnt. Well… Caramel never likes me.

I baked this in eight 3inch pans.

Recipe adapted from David Lebovitz


8 slices of canned pineapple
4 glace cherries, halved
35gm butter
100gm brown sugar
115gm butter
150gm sugar
2 eggs
125ml milk
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla extract
200gm cake flour sifted with 1/2 tsp sodium bicarbonate

1. Melt butter over low heat and put in brown sugar and cook on medium heat until sugar is dissolved and mixture is bubbly.
2. Pour into pans and spread it around. Lay one slice of pineapple into each pan and put a halved cherry into the core area of the pineapple.
3. Put cream of tartar into milk and stir. (You can skip this step if u substitute both ingredients with just plain yogurt)
4. Preheat oven at 160/180C.
5. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Put in eggs, one by one, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla extract.
6. Mix in flour in 2 batches, alternating with milk mixture. Mix until flour is moistened. Do not overmix.
7. Divide batter equally into prepared pans.
8. Bake for 30-35mins.
9. Invert onto plate immediately upon removal from oven, if not the caramel will hardened and stick to the pan when left to cool down, even for 5 minutes.



I will do this again. The cake was really good. Soft and fluffy. The next time will be with fresh pineapple, canned ones do not have much fragrance. And I will not cook the caramel again. I need to find a alternate way to brown the caramel...

17 comments:

  1. hahaahh 2nd time in a week i see this...posting this on my facebook ya

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  2. I love caramelized upsidedown fruity cake! Not satisfied with tri-trials? You are a perfectionist! They look very good to me.

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  3. When I used to make the cake, I never had to cook the sugar in the butter. All I did was just melt the butter and stir in the sugar and pour it into the tin. It turned out well and golden. I guess with all the baking, the sugar caramelised. Just sharing my experience.

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  4. This looks cute & I can imagine the fragrant of the caramel along with pineapple. I don't have the cute tin & never see anywhere. Never made pineapple cake yet altho quite a collection of recipe already but this one looks really nice & must try one day. Hopefully I dont have problem burning caramel, so far making the caramel puding with success. Suggest you use very thick bottom pot for it. I used vision pot & had no problem.

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  5. Manglish,
    thanks for the free publicity

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  6. Angie,
    There's no benefit for me to lie to you my cake taste bitter from the burnt caramel.
    :(

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  7. Busygran,
    That's almost what I did the 2nd time around.
    I hate cooking caramel!!!

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  8. Home Kreation,
    I used disposable aluminium pans. YOu'll see them from my 2nd attempt post which will be posted.... october?? I think.

    My pot is heavy based too. Those sites I've seen make the caramel until all bubbly and thick, but when my caramel reaches that stage, bitter candy is all I will get.

    Try the cake, not the caramel. Use your favourite way for the caramel.

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  9. Pineapple upside down. The classic cake. I am not a fan of making caramel either that is why I always used brown sugar if the recipe requires caramel. The texure of the cake does look very light and soft and not like the usual heavy cake.

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  10. These cakes look cute and may I ask, how many eggs? I've read the recipe over and over again and don't seem to find the eggs!

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  11. Well they certainly do look fabulous

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  12. Gert,
    Yes, the cake is really soft and nice.

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  13. Cheah,
    Thank you so much for telling me.
    I've made the ammendments.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Jennifurla,
    Hmmm... I'm fabulous too :)

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  15. Wendy, I failed during my 1st attempt of making caramel :(. This cake looks pretty and yummy!

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  16. Jess,
    Very hard hoh to make caramel? I don't want to cook traditional caramel on stove again.

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  17. my first attempt was a burned caramel. Going to be more patient and try it tonight.

    ReplyDelete

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