Picasso Upside Down Cake

Baking is just fun sometimes.
I like to buy fresh whole pineapples instead of canned ones. I use them for pizza topping for my wife, and usually we just eat the leftovers. Today I decided to make a pineapple upside down cake with them. When reading the recipe it occurred to me that, although I did have to put the pineapple on the bottom, I didn't just have to lay down rings. I could do any shapes that I wanted. I considered this a great opportunity. I though of trying some sort of tessellating mosaic but was daunted by the prospect of getting all the pieces the same. I considered writing a message of love to my wife, but I would have had to write it backwards to have it come out right. I finally decided on a portrait in pineapple. In my head I could see a fruity rendition of the renaissance masters. A pineapple Van Goh. A pineapple Renoir. What I ended up with was more of a pineapple Picasso. Perhaps if Picasso would have had a tropical fruit period instead of a blue period, this is what he would have created.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake - From Betty Crocker's New Cook Book
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
sliced pineapple, either fresh or canned - drained
maraschino cherries as desired
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening or softened butter
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg


The recipe is supposed to be baked in a 10 inch round skillet, I'm not sure why this is traditional but it's what I saw in several recipes. That's about 78.5 square inches. An 8x8 pan will work too, but at 64 inches will be a bit thicker. A 9x13 pan is 117 square inches, so it will be thinner. They will all work but your cooking time may vary.
Melt 1/4 cup butter and pour in pan, sprinkle brown sugar over the butter and arrange pineapple/cherries to your hearts content. Mix all of the other ingredients and pour them over the pineapple gently so as not to mess up your beautiful work.
Bake for 40-50 minutes at 350 until a toothpick comes out clean.
Pull out of the oven and immediately invert over...... something. A big plate, a cutting board, something. This takes a little finesse as the pan is 350 degrees and the cake is a bit sloppy and you don't want to screw up a fine piece of tropical fruit art.
The cake is best eaten warm but you can cover it after it cools and eat it any time. It's yummy.