We grew up having puddings after every meal and pineapple upside down cake was one of my favourites on a Sunday. I’ve not eaten it in decades and never made it myself so when I decided to take a trip down memory lane I turned to my Ministry of Food: thrifty wartime ways to feed your family cookbook for an authentic recipe. I used tinned pineapple as that’s what my Mum always used and I thought fresh pineapple would be too thick and chunky for the base of my cake. Not so it seems having now tried the Oxo Good Grips pineapple slicer which produces perfectly lovely slender rings.
E thought it was great fun twisting the ratcheting handle to quickly and easily cut through the pineapple. Between the 3 of us we polished off a whole pineapple in one sitting so perhaps we’ll have to get two pineapples in when the time comes to make another cake! The slicer is certainly a great gadget to have in to make eating your 5 a day more fun.
To make Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall’s wartime pineapple upside-down cake
2 tbsp brown sugar
100g butter (plus extra for greasing)
425g tinned pineapple rings (or fresh equivalent)
125g self-raising flour
100g sugar
1 egg
100ml milk
- Pre-heat oven to 180c/350F/gas mark 4 and grease an 18cm/7in cake tin
- In a saucepan melt the brown sugar, half the butter and 3 tbsp juice from the pineapple. Boil the mixture until it becomes a thick golden syrup. Pour over the base of the cake tin.
- Arrange the pineapple rings on the syrup in two layers, cutting if necessary to cover the base (my helper ate half my tin!)
- Sift the flour and mix it with the sugar. Melt the remaining butter and beat it into the flour with the egg and the milk. Beat until smooth but don’t over mix the batter. Pour over the pineapple and bake for about 40 minutes.
- Turn it out onto a plate and serve
Disclosure: I was sent the Oxo pineapple slice to review. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions are my own.
I first made this at school in the late 60s, where we put a glace cherry in the centre of each ring for colour, then later for my family, and it was always popular. I thought recently I should make it again, but couldn’t now bear the sickly sweet tinned pineapple! I would definitely use fresh and I have had the gadget for years from Lakeland. We use it loads and it makes a tedious task really quick and easy.
Yes Lynne that’s how we used to have it to. Mum always left one out of my ring as I’d only pick it out hence not using glace cherries now I have a choice about it! Her tin must have been much bigger though to fit 5 rings in :0) glad this post conjured up some good memories for you x
Am fancying a cup of tea now……..and a piece of cake. Needless to say we have none in…but I am still fancying some. Dilema!
Time to warm the oven up and get your mixing bowl out? If you haven’t got butter in there are some great recipes that use sunflower oil instead
Ditto re needing cake! Then I found two pieces of Greek honey cake in the freezer – Yey! I regularly freeze a few slices of cake for this reason. 😊
Genius!
[…] cold before removing. We’ve now also made a second recipe from the wartime cookbook – Pineapple upside down cake. And part 4 of my Ministry of Food exhibition posts explains how to make mock goose for Christmas […]