Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

So pineapples were $2 each a few weeks ago, and in my "Grocery shopping is FUN!" haze (that's not even sarcastic, I really do enjoy it. I recommend having a grocery shopping date as your weekly get-together with a friend, I don't think I'd be able to function without it) I bought one with some vague hopes of making a juice in my smoothie maker.

About a week later, Meryl came over and asked why I had a pineapple ("I dunno") and what I was going to do with it ("I dunno"), then decided we would make a pineapple upside down cake, and that was that. Meryl is my friend's girlfriend who lives in America but came over for visiting and we got to spend a crazy amount of time on my couch watching trashy TV while her boyfriend was at work. It was as awesome as it sounds, trust me.

Apparently this is more dense than they normally are, but I didn't have any complaints! Anything that can be thrown together reasonably simply with ingredients I already have is fine by me.

Non-inverted Second Cake and inverted First Cake (we doubled the recipe to use up all of the pineapple)

PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
Serves 8
Total time commitment: 40 minutes - 1 hour, most of which is baking
Recipe from Taste.com.au


1/2 a pineapple, cut into rings; or 440g can pineapple rings
1/3 cup brown sugar
90g butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a round cake pan with butter and sprinkle brown sugar over the base of the pan.

2. Arrange pineapple over the brown sugar. If you need to cut the rings in half to get them to fit, please do, it is better to have halved pineapple on your slice than no pineapple! You could even halve all of the pieces if you are concerned about the aesthetic value.

3. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined. Add flour and stir to combine.

4. Spread cake mixture over the pineapple and bake 30 - 40 minutes, or until a skewer/chopstick/knife/other implement you have on hand inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool, invert onto a plate, and serve.