Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I had a birthday earlier this week (I know, I know. I don't look a day older than I did last week.) and I've been trying to get around to baking myself a cake. Our weather has been hot, in the low 100s, all week so I didn't want to do any baking in the afternoons and I've been busy each morning. Finally today, before the heat of the day, I got my cake baked.

Although I absolutely love chocolate and a German chocolate cake is often my birthday cake of choice, this year I decided on something different. I hadn't had pineapple upside down cake for a long time, and that sounded good.

My mom, of course, makes the best pineapple upside down cake, baking it in an iron skillet. There's just something about the iron skillet method that amplifies the goodness of the cake. However, woe is me, I don't even own an iron skillet. So, I resorted to the 9 x 13 pan and, I must say, this cake looks pretty good and I'm sure it's going to taste great. It's cooling as I write this, but I'll try a piece shortly.

I used the recipe on the back of the Duncan Hines Pineapple Supreme cake mix, but it's certainly a simple recipe. Just melt a stick of butter in the pan (I did that as I was heating the oven), then carefully sprinkle a cup of brown sugar over the butter. Place pineapple slices over top; the can had 10 slices and it worked out very well. Prepare the cake mix as directed on the box then pour the batter carefully over the pineapple. (Oops, I left out the maraschino cherries. If you have them, drain and halve them and place them in the centers of the pineapple and in between the slices if you want. They make the result even prettier and I would have used them, but I didn't have any. I thought I did, but I didn't.) Bake the cake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes or so then invert onto the serving platter. (I just covered a cookie sheet with foil.) Cool a bit longer, then serve.

I finished baking and turning it upside down before the temperature reached 85 degrees this morning, but I haven't completed that last instruction - serve. It's time for that now, belated birthday pineapple upside down cake for breakfast.

Enjoy yours!

P.S. I just looked on amazon.com and found this skillet that I think would be perfect for baking a pineapple upside down cake or for anything else you can do with an iron skillet. I like the square shape - perfect for french toast. I really like the extra handle; that would make it extra easy to invert the pan and turn your perfectly-baked pineapple cake upside down!