Pineapple snack cake...

I was all set to make a batch of quickbread early this afternoon, but then I had to go ask Jeff what sounded good to him for a treat today. He said the quickbread would be fine, but wondered if we could do something more like a snack cake. After sifting through a few recipes, I came upon this Lighter Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and ran with it.

Why did I chose this one? Well, mainly because I would of had to run to the market for any of the others. I already happened to have a big 'ol pineapple that I was actually planning on using for dinner Sunday, but I'll just push that recipe to another date. Nothing is too tricky about this cake, except for maybe the prepartion of the pineapple. Basically what you are looking to do with trim off skin, quarter the pineapple and then cut each quarter into 4 pieces to get 16 wedges. Then, just trim off the core from the end of each wedge (you'll end up with sticks now) and slice the pieces so they are about 4 to 5 inches in length. You'll have lots of juicy bits to snack on until the cake is ready at least! I know this isn't the best picture, but it's the only whole one that came out (the rack gave us troubles I think) well enough to show you how the alternating slices look.

Those trimmed sticks are then placed in sets of four into a prepared baking pan that has been sprinkled with brown sugar on the bottom. The viscous cake batter uses canola oil for the fat, instead of butter, and is flavored with tangy buttermilk and sweet vanilla. When you pour the batter on top, be sure to tap the pan firmly so it has a chance to wiggle down through the pineapple - oh, and if it goes the same way as it did for me, you might want a towel handy to clean up the bits of batter off your face! The cake bakes up very tender, moist and soft with just enough sweetness that still allows the bright flavor of the golden pineapple to pull through.

Recipes
Lighter Pineapple Upside-Down Cake