Pineapple Upside Down Cake – Small Batch Baking

My Mom has been pestering me to bake her favorite dessert: Pineapple Upside Down Cake. 

But I’m on a low-carb diet (curses) and can’t help her devour a whole cake, so what is a girl to do?

HA! She pulls out her handy, dandy, Small-Batch Baking book. This book is neat because the recipes are scaled back so they make only enough for 1 or 2 servings. But don’t mistakenly think that these recipes are easy just because they make a small quantity. This Upside Down Cake was involved, and packed with a shopping list of ingredients. 

Here is the upside-down pineapple portion. You have to brown 1-1/2 teaspoons of butter in two jumbo muffin cups, mix the pineapple and brown sugar and then spread the pineapple mixture on top of the browned butter. 

The batter called for 3 tablespoons of buttermilk. Buttermilk! Who keeps that in their frig? 

I sure don’t, but I do keep powered buttermilk on hand. In baked goods this stuff tastes as good as the real thing, and there is no waste! The only head scratcher is trying to figure out how much powder to put the small batch recipe. I have to admit I needed a calculator for this one.

So here is the batter going into the oven… 

And the cakes coming out… 

I had some trouble with the center of the cakes cooking so the edges got a little brown. I finally had to turn down the oven temperature and covering the cakes with aluminum foil. The bottom and sides came out a little crispy, but the inside was nice a moist. 

And tasted delicious, according to my Mom.  I was a good girl and stuck to my diet. Not even a crumb of those evil carbs touched my lips. 

So if you ever want to make an elaborate cake for just 1 or 2, try the Small-Batch Baking book, but be prepared to get a lot of bowls dirty and dig out those teeny, tiny 1/8 teaspoon measuring spoons. 

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