HCB: Individual Pineapple Upside Down Cakes
Sunday, January 31, 2010 
Can I say this right off the bat (so we can all gasp and get it over with) I don’t like any cake, or pies or tartlets’ or anything that is made with fruit, or has fruit in it, never have and for the record; I have not acquired the taste over the years. In fact, let me put this out there:
I.HATE.PIE. There I said it, it’s out there.
You all have five second to give me the speech about this… Ready... Set...GO!
1,2,3,4,5…Ok, Done? Good, lets move on.
So after all that information I just gave, you can image my mind frame when I saw this cake came up to bat. I was like: “mmm, maybe I will skip it” Until the boyfriend and the little man (the Boyfriend son) asked me what cake was next. And the reaction was as follow:
Boyfriend: “Babe, just because you are “scared’ of cooked fruit it does not mean we need to miss out on this, some of us like fruit”
And I had a come back, I did, until the little man jumped up and shouted “Ohhh!! Pineapple cake, please make it for my birthday cake!”
That 8-year old is sneaky, just like his father.
I was done for, plus we were invited to a dinner party and I figure I could get rid of all of it by offering to take it as the dessert.
The first thing I decided to do was use ramekins instead of the cute cake pan, because the cute cake pan was very expensive and I could not justify owning it just to bake pineapple cake in the future. So I prepped 8 ramekins.
I stared with the caramel and I have done caramel before, in fact melting sugar had nothing on me.
Wrong!
Apparently, Turbinado sugar DOES have something on me because I must have looked away a mili-second too long, and before I knew it, the mixture had turn into a black color and not the deep amber that the book hinted at. Into the trash it went and a second round was started, with better results, except that I ended with not enough to cover all of the 8 ramekins... so 3 of those were very poorly coated.
I started on the cake and this went in much smoother. Everything came together as the book explained, except, once more I was a bit unsure of the batter distribution among the ramekins. This was even after I filled them up using the weight measurements cited in the book and not eyeballing it. But, I let it go into the hot oven they went.
Baking…baking…baking until the house smelled delicious and out they came. Tested them and right away I started to unmold them. Some came out pretty fast, others I had to sweet talked them out of the ceramic mold. Some of the caramel was melted, and others had some un-melted portions, very weird
And upon closer inspection, I realized that my instincts were right and the ration of cake was quite low. I mentally noted that I needed to go with 6-rameskins the next time and not 8, so I could have a pretty substantial cake distribution.
I finished them up with the suggestion of coating them with warm apricot glaze and I did skip the caramel sauce all together, figure it would be way to sweet (I knew the pineapples were supper sweet to begin with) and was to tired to try my luck again with the sugar and heat.
But it did not matter, the results were in:
Boyfriend: “YUM! In need of a repeat”
The little man: “Approved for my birthday cake next week!”
My mother: “They were delicious, needed more cake thought”
Host 1 from the dinner party: “I wish there was a bit more caramel on them, but they are great"
Host 2 from the dinner party: “No, they are perfect this way”
My take: I did taste them and thought they were good, love the cake texture and the fact that it was not sweet at all, which balance the sweetness of the pineapple and apricot glaze.
Would I make it again? Probably, I mean who can say no to an 8-year?
Oh, wait I been corrected as I write this.. a NINE-YEAR-OLD!
Reader Comments (7)
Monica, Your cakes look perfect, as do your photographs. How nice of you to make these for your men!
Ask the little man how he feels about true-orange genoise for a birthday cake--he sounds like an adventurous eight (oops, I mean nine) year old.
Kudos to you for going ahead after botching the first batch of caramel. I've done exactly the same thing, but it is discouraging.
I also botched the first batch of caramel, but didn't really notice...how could I not notice that it was black? Oh well. Your photos are beautiful!
Your cake looks so mouth-watering! I love all your photos! OMG! Guess what? I made true-orange genoise as my husband's birthday cake too! LOL!
Thank you guys for all the nice comments! I'm really loving making the cakes every week and taking photos of them... I'm learning so many new things!
And I have a secret, I'm ahead by a week on the cake making. Faithy... next weeks cake has been enjoyed and feedback has been overwhelming! Can't wait to post my take on it!
Marie...never discouraging, always a challenge for me... what's that saying? "if at first you don't succeed try try (and try) again"!
Lovely photos!!!!!! Funny write up too.
I'm so glad you've joined the baking group.
:)
ButterYum
Oooh these look lovely! I'm really thinking about buying the book?