Pineapple Upside-Down Cake - 5 stars

this was the first upside-down cake i've ever made, and it was SO good! wow. it had a really unique (but good!) flavor to it, which was primarily from the ground cardamom that went into the batter. mmmmm.

i made my cake in a cast iron pan, starting on the stove top, finishing in the oven. the first step was to melt butter with brown sugar in the cast iron pan, but.... i didn't have any brown sugar! i did some very quick internet research while the butter was melting, and found out that i could mix some molasses with regular sugar to create brown sugar. there are different ratios depending on whether you are trying to get to light or dark brown sugar or somewhere in the middle. i, of course, did the wrong ratio and was terrified that it'd ruin my cake.

after i melted the butter and caramelized the screwed up brown sugar, i removed the pan from the heat and arranged the pineapple slices in the bottom of the pan. i didn't read the recipe correctly here either, because i was supposed to layer them so that the bottom of one slice overlapped the top of another. oops. the only thing this affected was how the finished cake looked.



i let the pan cool while i prepared the batter. it was easy to assemble, recipe is below. it's from gourmet magazine - i found the recipe on their website. it did not include the baking temperature for the cake though! uh, that's an important piece of information! i left a comment for gourmet though, and it looks like they've since updated the recipe to include the temp - 350f. :-)

i used just shy of 3 teaspoons of cardamom in the batter, and i thought it was perfect. and as far as i could tell, the parts of the recipe that i screwed up didn't affect the finished product at all. it appears that this is quite a forgiving recipe. :-)

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Serves 8

• Active time:30 min
• Start to finish:1 1/2 hr

ADAPTED FROM RICK ELLIS

February 2000

For topping

• 1/2 medium pineapple, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and cored
• 3/4 stick unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

For batter

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 to 3 teaspoons ground cardamom (see cooks' notes)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon dark rum
• 1/2 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
• 2 tablespoons dark rum for sprinkling over cake

• Special equipment:

  a well-seasoned 10-inch cast-iron skillet

Make topping:

• Cut pineapple crosswise into 3/8-inch-thick pieces. Melt butter in skillet. Add brown sugar and simmer over moderate heat, stirring, 4 minutes. Remove from heat. Arrange pineapple on top of sugar mixture in concentric circles, overlapping pieces slightly.

Make batter:

• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Sift together flour, cardamom, baking powder, and salt. Beat butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then gradually beat in granulated sugar. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla and rum. Add half of flour mixture and beat on low speed just until blended. Beat in pineapple juice, then add remaining flour mixture, beating just until blended. (Batter may appear slightly curdled.)
• Spoon batter over pineapple topping and spread evenly. Bake cake in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Let cake stand in skillet 5 minutes. Invert a plate over skillet and invert cake onto plate (keeping plate and skillet firmly pressed together). Replace any pineapple stuck to bottom of skillet. Sprinkle rum over cake and cool on plate on a rack.
• Serve cake just warm or at room temperature.

Cooks’ notes:

• Some of the food editors found 3 teaspoons of cardamom to be too much, but others loved the intense flavor.
• Cake may be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Courtesy of gourmet.com

Christmas Gingerbread Cookies

my friend blu is a professional cake decorator. she creates these beautiful, fancy cakes - and it's far beyond my comprehension how she does it. granted, baking isn't something i get very excited about, so i'd rather just admire her work than try to emulate it. :)

anyway, i bake christmas cookies with my mom every year, which we did this year, but blu suggested we have another cookie decorating evening. i was excited about this because mom and i tend to make the same recipes every year - they're really good, and they're our traditional christmas cookies, so it's hard to give any of them up in order to try new ones. so, this was my opportunity to try something new! i've seen (and enjoyed!) blu's christmas cookies from past years, and they are something special. they look super fancy, and taste fantastic.

this year, blu and her friend rebel made gingerbread cookies in a variety of shapes, and brought them down to decorate. she brought royal icing (which i've never worked with) and food coloring. she also brought glitter, which was my favorite part of it all. that sounds odd, i know - but it's food glitter! you use little paint brushes to apply it to the gingerbread - it's easy to apply whatever design you like, and it's totally edible. it doesn't actually have any taste.

i was quite challenged by the application of the royal icing. to ice the cookies, blu made two separate batches of royal icing base - one thick, and one thin. she then separated the batches and created a couple different colors out of each. to apply the icing, you create a thin border around the outside edge of the cookie using the thick icing. you then fill inside the border with the thin icing. after you do that, you can create designs in the icing (which was WAY beyond my capability!).

we started the project by applying the icing, and then blu brought out the glitter. i found myself feeling rather stressed out by the icing application. a steady hand and a lot of patience is required - neither of which i had much of. i think i could enjoy it more outside of the chaos of the holiday season.

i loved the glitter application though. it was really easy to create fun designs, and, well, i love glitter. i'm not ashamed. :-)

these pictures are blurry! in the one below, blu and rebel are mixing the icing, and i'm just watching from the sidelines. with my shot o' vodka.




here blu is showing us how to apply the icing.



below, on the right, are some completed gingerbread cookies. (on the left are date pinwheels, which i made with my mom.)

the gingerbread cookies in this photograph don't have icing, just glitter. the one underneath is a purple present box with polka dots. the one on top is my gingerbread version of tony. :-) yup, that's correct, gingerbread tony is wearing a gold tank top and striped shorts with a green belt. how stylish.



all in all, i had a good time visiting with rebel & blu, and using glitter to decorate the cookies. the icing application, however, was just a bit too ... what's the right word? meticulous or nitpicky are close enough, i guess ... i'd have to be in a very particular mood to try it again. :)