Upside-down Rum Pineapple Cake (+ tips and tricks)
I made Claire Saffitz's Pineapple Cake and while the video (or her book!) should be your go to, I'm going to give you the tips and tricks I found when making them.
First and foremost: browning the butter. She mentions 1/2 a stick for the caramel layer, and 1 and 1/2 for the actual cake part, but because I was watching the video at 2x speed in the kitchen, AND while she makes the caramel layer first, she actually preps the brown butter for the cake before anything else. So do note that you're browning 1 and 1/2 sticks of butter (that's 170g for us metrics), and don't do 1/2 a stick like me and wonder what's going on.
You can see it really froths up so you do need to stir constantly. Browning butter takes longer than you expect and you have a lot of leeway, so don't be shy. Do take it off the pan if you're scared and keep stirring it since the residual heat lasts for quite a while (even using a bad pan that doesn't really hold heat like I am here).
Okay, so I couldn't get fresh pineapple, so these are canned. Here's the difference: canned ones cook a lot faster, so even though my caramel wasn't reduced as much as Claire's in her video, my pineapple had definitely turned far more translucent than expected. I recommend you reduce your caramel layer down more before you add in canned slices.
Also since it was my first time, I didn't really want to add too much pineapple, but I would recommend you DOUBLE the amount I used here. Canned pineapple is way cheaper and I'm using a single can here that's $1.50 NZD (0.88 USD).
It's also quite hard to tell how far you've reduced the caramel layer since it froths up so much (see second photo up top) so I did periodically take it off the heat and check the consistency.
Claire recommends using sour cream, but I didn't have any, so I used creme fraiche instead. These two ingredients are very commonly interchangeable, but here's what you're actually changing:
- sour cream, in my experience, is looser (which means you'll get a lighter texture)
- sour cream also has more tang, so depending on your taste, you may or may not like it (to replicate with creme fraiche, I'd use less and add a dash of greek yoghurt/lemon juice instead)
- creme fraiche is fattier and thicker, so it makes whatever you're making 'harder'. Using this in a cake instead of sour cream gives a less bouncy texture.
My mistake: Because I was using creme fraiche, it was a bit harder to whip, so I actually over-mixed during the flour stage. This, combined with using creme fraiche instead of sour cream, made the texture of the cake a tiny bit denser than I would've liked.
You can see my cake batter due to being slightly overmixed by the handmixer, meant it was more difficult to spread to the edges compared to Claire's.
Oh, and she rightfully tells you to bake for 30~40 mins depending on your oven. Hers baked for 35 mins, and I got lazy and just thought, "Yeah, I'll do 35 mins too!".
:(
I knew the moment I glanced at the oven at 35 mins that I had -slightly- overbaked it, so that's another mistake. (Note: I was using convection/fan forced)
Please put your timer for 30 mins and check it then.
Like Claire, there were some drips when I flipped out the cake onto the wire rack to cool. (You can see I preemptively put parchment paper beneath it and that was a great idea) And yes, I absolutely used an off-set spatula to cut around the edges and loosen it. Don't skip that step! Otherwise your pineapple and caramelized crust (the best part) is going to stick to your skillet.
I shared this with 7 other people and they really liked it! The recipe makes quite a lot and it goes great with light teas but we had it with blood orange cocktails. There's a lot of rum in this dish already, and coupled with the browned butter, gives it an lovely depth that you don't find in regular fruit cakes.
Remember to double the amount of pineapple that I'm using!