Monday Monday and Pineapple Upside Down Cake

It's Monday and it's dreary and I find my motivation level at about negative 20!  We had a good weekend and it's time to kick back into gear!

Friday Night we went to  Baja Grill in Southlake.  The food was EXCELLENT. I mean seriously how can you go wrong with Lobster Tacos???   If you live around here you should check them out, I was very impressed.   We went with friends to celebrate Chuck and Frank's birthdays.  Frank loves Pineapple Upside Down Cake (apparently so does Austin, Court's boyfriend.. we found this out when he almost dove into the cake before we left to see our friends!).  Anyway, I decided to try Jeff's mom Janie's recipe so here goes!

Cast of Characters:

1/3 cup butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

Sliced canned pineapple, marashino cherries and pecans

3 large eggs

1 cup sugar

6 Tbsp of pineapple juice (unsweetened)

1 tsp vanilla (I left poor vanilla out of photo)

1 1/2 cups sifted CAKE flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Let's Roll:

In a heavy 10 inch cast iron skillet (yes, this is a must. If you don't have one find a flea market and buy yourself one...it's worth every penny you spend!) melt the butter.

When the butter is melted, mix in the brown sugar and let the sugar melt into the butter

Once the butter and sugar are all nice and warm and cozy turn off the heat and add your pineapple rings and cherries and pecans...

I do apologize for the slight blurriness of the photo as I must have gotten excited at this point and moved the camera. Sometimes that happens

Now just leave this hanging out on the stove while we work on the batter.

Beat your eggs until they are thick and pale lemon color (about 7 mins).

If you have a wonderful stand mixer then get those eggs going while you get the other ingredients together.

If you don't have a stand mixer, then think of it as working on those jiggly triceps!!

Gradually beat in the granulated sugar and continue blending for another 2-3 minutes then beat in the pineapple juice and vanilla.  In a separate bowl sift your flour and baking powder and salt. Then sift that stuff again.  Now your kitchen probably looks something like this...

Don't worry about that part now...it's ok. If you have a dog you can get them to start working on getting the floor cleaned up a little.  It's ok, they will actually eat flour...at least ours will!

Now add the flour mixture gradually to the egg mixture and beat just until blended. Pour slowly over the pineapples in skillet.

It's time to pop this in the oven at 375 degrees for about 40-45 minutes then get to work on the rest of the mess you made in the kitchen. Then again, maybe you are a much better sifter than I and you didn't make as big of a mess as me or let the dog finish...your call.


Turn out the cake onto serving platter when finished baking and Janie suggested serving with whipped cream. I've never had whipped cream on my pineapple upside down cake but heck, that could only be good in my opinion.  This is the beauty you get for your sifting efforts:

I'm going to be honest about this.....I'm not sure how I felt about this cake.  I was REALLY full from dinner when I had a piece so I'm not sure if I just wasn't quite ready for dessert or what. Hubby doesn't care for pineapple at all so I got no objective opinion from him.  Everyone else said it was great but then again, they are nice people and they wouldn't have told me if it was crappy.   You guys make it and let me know what you think.  I'm sure I will end up making it again but in the meantime I'd love to hear your comments.

Peace, Love and Yummies!!!