Last weekend was my (not so) little brother's birthday. He said he wanted pineapple upside down cake. Now, the only way I've ever had this, was someone made a huge 9x13 pan of mush at the bottom and yellow cake mix on top. So, I decided to make this a challenge. A "classy" version of PUD cake. Is such a thing possible?
Well I searched the internet for a double layered recipe and they were all basically the same - cake mix with brown sugar, pineapples & cherries on bottom. So I used that for the topping and made my standard vanilla cake using the recipe from my favorite classy lady. My brother requested extra cherries so I added a lot to one of the cakes. I also used crushed pineapple for that layer and rings for the other one. That makes a middle & top layer.
When it was done, I let them cool completely in the pan. Mostly because I was short on time and afraid of a disaster. After I removed from pan and stacked the layers, I noticed two things. First, the butter and sugar from the top was running down the sides. Second, they didn't stack together nicely as I imagined. The runny topping was solved with a paper towel. It wasn't too bad, just enough to bother me. The problem of curved sides on the cakes, however, was a little bit more tricky. This may have been because of my pans or the way the cake baked. I'm not too sure.
Anyway, I decided to add some frosting. I made some pineapple buttercream (see my post about the frosting here) and used it to even out the sides and make a nice stacked look. I obviously didn't want to frost over the top. That's one of the best parts about this cake. So I just iced up the sides, piped a little around the edge and decorated with cherries. It came out pretty nice, I think. Here's what it looked like.
Once we cut into it, I noticed the center was a little undercooked and, with the addition of the fruit, it got soggy after sitting through birthday dinner. So, I secretly cut out the middle while no one was looking! So much for being professional! Ha ha!
It tasted great and looked pretty good too, aside from the middle which is easily resolved with baking a little longer. Unlike a plain cake, this cake will not dry out if slightly overcooked, which I should have realized. Live and learn, that's what this is all about!
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