By Leitha Matz
It’s not difficult to understand the enduring popularity of the pineapple upside-down cake, with its delicately sweet and buttery body crowned by a rich caramelized pineapple topping. You may not realize, however, that this dessert represents a distinctly American unification of opposites, marrying old country with new world, peasant stock with aristocracy.
Pineapples were brought back from Hispaniola and first introduced to Europe in 1496 – quite literally the fruits of Columbus’s second American voyage. Although they were an immediate hit with his employers, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the plants proved frustrating to cultivate in Europe. For several centuries the pineapple’s provocative scents and tangy taste were luxuries available exclusively to merchant sailors and nobility.
The possession and display of a perfect pineapple remained a mark of wealth and status up through the 1800s for upper-class Europeans as well as the more prosperous colonists of North America. Incidentally, it is for this reason (and as a Caribbean symbol of hospitality) that we often see the pineapple motif in Colonial-era metalwork, architecture, serving pieces, and needlepoint.
It wasn’t until the early 1900s, soon after James Drummond Dole began canning the delicacy for his Wahiawa-based Hawaiian Pineapple Company (later the Dole Pineapple Company), that these tropical treats became attainable to American families of modest means.
The base of any upside-down cake has a history of its own, going back through the centuries to rustic, bread-like confections flavored with honey, alcohol, or fruit. They were special accompaniments of religious rites and celebrations. The lighter crumb-cake and sponge-cake confections that we recognize today as “cake” emerged with the introduction of baking powder and refined sugar.
Since ovens have not always been common or reliable, it seems safe to guess that the upside-down cakes of bygone eras (essentially skillet cakes) were born of practicality. For want of a temperature-controlled oven, a baker in those days would have made cake or bread in a skillet, and turned it out upside-down.
While there’s no clear claim to who it was, or what kitchen it was that invented the marriage of a humble skillet cake with the princely pineapple, there is evidence of the recipe’s rapidly spreading popularity in magazines and cookbooks beginning in the mid-1920s.
In 1925, the Dole company sponsored a recipe contest that garnered more than 60,000 submissions, 2,500 of which were for pineapple upside-down cake. The concoction’s popularity soared thereafter. Pineapple upside-down cakes appeared in magazines, cookbooks and advertisements. By 1931, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Home Economics had jumped on the pineapple bandwagon, publishing this upside-down-cake recipe in “Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes Revised,” a booklet written by Ruth Van Deman and Fanny Walker Yeatman:
PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
Pineapple mixture:
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs pineapple juice
3 slices pineapple
Melt the sugar in a skillet over moderate heat, stirring constantly and allowing it to brown slightly. Add the butter and pineapple juice and cook until a fairly thick syrup is formed. Place the sections of pineapple in the syrup and cook a few minutes, or until they are light brown, turning occasionally. Have ready a well-greased heavy baking pan or dish; place the pineapple on the bottom and pour the syrup over it. Allow to cool so it will form a semisolid surface, then pour in the following:
Cake batter:
1/4 cup butter or other fat
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups sifted soft-wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
Cream the butter or fat, add the sugar, the well-beaten egg, and the vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together, and add alternately with the milk to the butter-and-egg mixture.
Pour over the pineapple. The batter is rather thick and may need to be smoothed on top with a knife. Bake in a very moderate oven (300-325 degrees F.) for 45 minutes. Loosen the sides of the cake, and turn it out carefully, upside down. If the fruit sticks to the pan, lift out and place it on the cake. Serve with whipped cream, à la mode, or with hard sauce.
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In modern cookbooks, recipes often call for standard cake pans, which are lighter than iron skillets and make the cake’s sides uniformly vertical. There are still advantages to cast iron cooking, however. Heavy skillets absorb and distribute heat, so the cakes cook quickly and evenly, and since the topping is made in the same pan used for baking, less mess and cleanup is involved. Some purists also appreciate the skillet cake’s characteristic sloped edges.
The following recipe works well not just with fresh pineapple (pick out a small one) but with all sorts fresh fruits. Use slightly firm fruits and cut into 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch slices, or select sweet-tart berries and use about a half-pint. For plums or apricots, use 5 medium-sized fruits. For peaches, use 4 medium-sized fruits. For mangoes, peel and slice 2 medium-sized fruits. You can also use tart apples (use about two of them, peeled and sliced to 1/2-inch) with a dash of cinnamon
If you do choose to use canned pineapple, be sure to select an unsweetened variety (about 20 oz) and drain well to avoid excess moisture in the end result.
FAVORITE FRUIT UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE (serves 8)
Topping:
4 Tbs butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
Fresh berries or fruit of your choice
Preheat oven to 350. Melt butter in a 9-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat and add brown sugar. Stir to blend, cooking 3-4 minutes. Mixture should look slightly foamy. Remove from heat and layer on the fruit slices in a concentric pattern. Set aside while you mix the cake batter.
Cake:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbs baking powder
8 Tbs (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup milk
Whisk together flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking powder. Cream butter and sugar in a separate bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Alternately add flour and milk until batter is just combined.
Carefully pour cake batter over the topping mixture in skillet. Place skillet in center of oven and bake 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into cake center comes out clean. (When using berries or particularly juicy fruits, place a sheet tray underneath the skillet to catch any stray drips.)
Cool 2-3 minutes on a rack. Run a knife around the cake edge to release sides from skillet. Hold a platter tightly over the skillet and use oven mitts to invert the cake onto the platter. Lift away the skillet and use a fork to nudge any stray topping or askew fruits back into an attractive pattern. Serve warm or at room temperature.
You’ll find this is a crowd-pleaser, whether you serve it plain, à la mode, or garnished with fresh whipped cream.
