Pineapple Upsidedown Cake

I just realized that it has been more than a week since I have written on here.  Wow!  Time flies!  It has been pretty crazy around here with trying to keep up with school things for the kids, full time work for Jimmy and me, my mother-in-law in the hospital for 10 days (she's home, now, and resting to regain her strength and fully recover), and trying to get my Pampered Chef business off the ground...as well as juggling dentist appointments (Jimmy had another wisdom tooth pulled!) and prenatal visits...

Which, by the way, I wanted to let all of you know!!!!

Jimmy and I went in for a sonogram, and even though I didn't really want to know, I had promised Jimmy and Elizabeth that this time we would find out the sex of the baby and it's going to be another...

(drum roll, please!)

BOY!

Gabriel will now have a brother to bang around with, and Jo will now be outnumbered when Elizabeth is away at school!  Poor Jo!  She's getting tougher, though, and Gabriel just absolutely adores her, so I'm sure it will all work out.

Anyway, my life is kind of resembling the title of this post:

A pineapple upsidedown cake!  Everything baking up the way that it should be, but just feeling all mixed together and crazily upside down!

What made me think of that was yesterday when Peter came over and I threw him into the kitchen to bake a cake.

Yesterday was my Pampered Chef Open House, and everyone who came had so much fun cooking in the kitchen and they all wanted to try out all the new tools and toys, that we didn't get through all the recipes that I had planned.  Actually, I had quite a few recipes, and I let the ladies pick the ones that they wanted to make and so we made strawberry smoothies in the Manual Food Processor, and pizzas on the Stoneware (which a lot of is 20% off this month!) and potato chips using the Simple Slicer, to name a few, but we didn't get to the Pineapple Upside-down cake, which is what Jimmy was hoping for.  Since he was away all day helping a friend of ours move, I decided that I would make it for him anyway, but after being on my feet all day, then getting dinner together, I didn't really have the energy.

Elizabeth wasn't game for it, either, since she had been up since early in the morning babysitting 3 little boys and then home to help me, so when Peter arrived on our doorstep, he was enlisted to bake the cake.

He actually did quite well.  I was very impressed seeing as his only previous experience in the kitchen was to put little pizzas in the oven. 


He approached it much like a science experiment, which he is very good at doing, and which, in fact, is what cooking really is.

First he gathered all the ingredients with Gabriel and Jo's help:

 although most of what they gathered wasn't needed and ended up on the floor...

 at least the little tubs of spices didn't open!

This is what Peter gathered:

1/2 c butter
1 c brown sugar
1 can pineapple slices, undrained
5 maraschino cherries, drained and halved
1 package of yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 c vegetable oil

Then the oven got turned on to 350 degrees and the butter was melted in an oven proof 12 skillet

When that was melted, he stirred in the brown sugar until it was well blended.

After that, the pineapple was drained, and the juice set aside and the pineapple was arranged over the brown sugar mixture in the skillet, and the cherries were set in the center of each pineapple slice.  Ok, not each one because Jo came in and ate half of the cherries, so then there weren't enough to go around!

When that was done, and Jo was stopped from taking a cherry out of her mouth to replace in one of the pineapple slices, enough water was added to the pineapple juice to measure 1/3 c liquid and mixed with the cake mix, the eggs and the oil.  This was all whisked until it was smooth.

Next is always the question of where to put the whisk while you dump the cake mixture into the pan, but Jo and Gabriel took care of that problem.

When the cake mixture was dumped over the pineapples in the pan,

then whole thing was put into the oven for 35-40 minutes

(Yes, that is mud on his pants.  He was being chased around the yard and apparently tackled by Jo and Gabriel and ended up in the mud.)

until a wooden pick inserted into the center came out clean.

After that, it came out of the oven

 

 and left to sit for 5 minutes.  Doesn't it look beautiful!

Finally, it was time to turn it out onto its plate.  I said these specific words to Peter...

"Peter, it's going to still be really hot.  Use the hot mits.  Don't touch the pan or you will burn yourself.  Peter, it's hot."

He looked right at me, so I KNOW he heard, and he even said, 'ok' and looked at the pan and I said again, it's hot...

and can you guess what Peter did?

Yes, he did.  Grabbed the pan with his bare (bear!) hands. 

And I KNOW that he had heard me because he didn't say anything about that it burned him other than to let it go and grab the mits.  It wasn't until later that he showed me his hands, which were burned all the way across. 

Anyway...

The cake finally got turned out onto its plate

 (notice the hot mits?)

and it was beautiful! 

This is what was left after about 2 minutes:

And by the end of the evening, the plate was clean, washed and put away.

Great job, Peter!  It was delicious!