Pineapple Sunshine Cake
This is the recipe from The February Garden, after receiving quite a few requests for the details of how to make our “little bit of sunshine” cake. It was inspired by Good Food Magazine’s instructions for a Retro Upside Down Cake, but altered for what was in our pantry at the time, and made child-friendly with a lack of rum and sticky topping. This version takes less time and can be cut into portable squares for picnics.
Ingredients:
Stage 1: The Pineapple Base
50g unsalted butter, softened (extra for greasing the tin)
50g light brown soft sugar
8 canned pineapple rings, in syrup (Tip: If you want an easy topping, reserve the syrup and pour it over the warm cake.)
Approx 10 glace or maraschino cherries
Stage 2: The Sponge Mix
150g unsalted butter, softened
150g golden caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
50g desiccated coconut (extra to decorate)
Zest of four limes (save some to decorate)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 large eggs
Equipment:
Baking tin (approx 20cm x 20cm)
Baking parchment
Kitchen Mixer
Spatular
Knife, for slicing cake into squares
Method:
- Set the oven to 180c/160c fan.
- Butter and line the cake tin.
- Beat the 50g of butter with the brown sugar.
- Spread the butter and sugar paste over the base and sides of the cake tin liner.
- Arrange the pineapples over the base, with a cherry placed in each centre and gap.
- For the sponge, tip the butter, sugar, flour, desiccated coconut, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, the lime zest (saving a tiny bit back) and eggs into a large bowl.
- Beat in an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.
- Spoon batter over pineapple and level with a spatular.
- Bake for 35-40 mins.
- Leave to cool – it won’t look pretty just yet…
- Once cooled, turn out, upside down, onto a cutting board to reveal the pineapple decoration as the top of the cake. Ta-dah!
- Decorate with the set-aside desiccated coconut and lime zest.
- Cut into squares, if desired.
Yum! That looks like sunshine and could brighten a gloomy Winter day!
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Thank you Tierney x It can get a bit cloudy here in winter, it’s nice to have some summery brightness 🙂
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This luscious cake has such lovely memories for me. My mother would bake this for special occasions. I grew up during the second world war, and pineapple simply didn’t exist. When rationing was finally over and it make an appearance on the grocers shelves we were in heaven. A treasure of a recipe,indeed. Bon Appetit, Virginia
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Thank you so much for sharing your memory, how lovely that your mother baked upside down cake 🙂 Whenever I talk to someone here in our village who lived through rationing, they always tell me that when all of these tropical foods starting arriving, it was like a dream 🙂
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I remember these. Yum!
janet
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Looks delish
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It was 😀 Not exactly health food, but oh my goodness it’s tasty
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Oh, yum!
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Oh my, that looks so good. It makes me think of my mom who used to make pineapple upside down cakes.
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It’s been fun seeing how many readers link this cake to their childhoods 🙂 It’s a smiley sort of cake, I think.
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🙂
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That extra punch of flavour from the lime and coconut sounds delightful! And your recipe is so much simpler than the old fashioned ones.Yummy!
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All my recipes are simplified, as I am usually cooking with five children running around me – and they like to help so it has to be foolproof so that their attempts always work 🙂 Thanks so much for the lovely comment Irene x
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Aaww, yes, I still remember how much fun it is to bake with little ones. One of our challenges was deciding who would crack the so common third egg in cake recipes, since I only have two daughters. Of course they could keep track and take turns heehee. 💕
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My daughter loves this delicious snack. Thank you!
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Wonderful – I hope you get to try it, it is so easy to make x
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