Recipe Test: Pineapple Upside Down Cake from Loving It Vegan

I had a birthday after approximately 50 days in isolation. I knew it would be likely that I'd be at home, so on my last grocery shopping trip--approximately a month before this--I picked up some canned pineapple rings and maraschino cherries. I couldn't really decide on a frosted birthday cake and I wasn't sure I wanted to go to the trouble. But I haven't had pineapple upside down cake--which is so delightfully retro--in probably a decade.

It's my father's favorite cake and he always gets one for his birthday, so I guess it was a little bit of nostalgia and family connection, too. I made and ate a lot of pineapple upside down cakes when I was growing up. We had to have one for every significant occasion, because my father loved them so much. Christmas, Thanksgiving, his birthday, a celebration dinner of another sort--anything.

I'm not even that fond of maraschino cherries. But I had to have it. So I found a recipe at Loving It Vegan that I could make.

I wasn't able to get a large can of pineapple rings, so I just had two little ones. Hence, I wasn't able to line the sides of the cake with pineapple ring halves. But I did get to cover the top, at least! Also, I don't have a 9-inch round cake pan that isn't a spring form, and although the recipe doesn't tell you this, attempting to make a pineapple upside down cake in a spring form pan will lead to abject disaster--all your brown sugar syrupy goodness will run out the bottom! So I used an 8 x 8 inch square pan.

It was wonderful. The cake isn't exactly what I remember--we tended to use a yellow cake mix, which is a bit softer and more moist than this one--but it was still amazing. There is nothing that quite beats the magical moment when you flip a cake like this over. It just seems like an ordinary, boring cake, and then: Colors! Fruit! A steamy, buttery brown sugar syrup running down all over everything!

As good as it was fresh from the oven, I think this cake was even better the next day, with the leftovers reheated a bit in the microwave.

So happy (now belated) birthday to me! I hope all of you are well. Whatever you've had to give up or change, I hope you're able to find alternatives that soothe you in your feelings of loss.