Smoke alarm

We woke up to the smoke alarm going off Sunday morning.  Dad had a pineapple upside down cake in the oven.  The unfortunate thing is that we didn't have the right size cake pan to accommodate seven nice pineapple rings on the top.  He opted to use a spring form pan.  We now know that the brown sugar will leak out the bottom of the spring form pan and burn on the bottom of the stove.  The smoke detector was going off and the dilemma was that the cake still had 25 minutes to go.  We just opened all the doors and windows and kept it bake'n.  It was worth it.

This recipe comes from the two Brass sisters.  They write heritage recipes and even though we lost most of the brown sugar the cake was delicious.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

7 slices/rings of canned pineapple from 20oz can, and 5 Tablespoons reserved juice

1 cup cake flour (  not self rising )

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, separated

1 cup white granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.   Rack should be in middle position.

Sift together cake flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

In a 9 inch cake pan, swirl butter to coat the bottom and sides of pan.  (Do it over the sink in case of drips ) Most will settle to the bottom.

Sprinkle brown sugar over the bottom of the pan.

Using paper towel pat pineapple slices dry on both sides and arrange in a decorative pattern on the bottom of the pan.

In a large bowl stir egg yolks just to break them up and add sugar, vanilla and 5 Tablespoons of reserved pineapple juice.  Mix well and stir in flour mixture until combined.  Set aside.  Place egg whites in bowl of electric mixer fitted with whisk attachment and beat until just stiff but not dry.

Fold egg whites into the batter already in the large bowl until fully combined.

Pour batter into cake pan.

Bake 45-55 minutes until tester inserted into middle comes out clean.

Coll pan on rack 2-3 minutes then invert onto another cooling rack.  It will still be quite warm and very moist.  Scrape any remaining bits of sugar or fruit from pan onto top of cake.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 8    Yummy!!