Miso Brown Sugar Pineapple Upside Down Cake
a cake that can do both
A little announcement! After receiving a bunch of requests, I have made this recipe available as a pdf. Paid subscribers can scroll to the bottom of the post to download. I am working on updating the rest of the recipes with a downloadable pdf as well.
Ok, let’s get to the cake. When I am tired of citrus in the dead of winter, I always crave bright, juicy, and sweet pineapple. Something about its cheery color and flavor just perks me up. Canned pineapple is also readily available year round, and tastes pretty good, which is a bonus. This cake uses rings for a classic 1950s diner look, but you could certainly slice a fresh pineapple if you prefer.
I have made pineapple cakes with vanilla, pink peppercorns and bay a la Claudia Fleming in The Last Course (a must have cookbook for anyone who likes dessert.) If you’ve had an idea about a seasonal dessert, chances are Claudia Fleming already made it, in the 90s. The book was out of print for years and copies went for hundreds on eBay, but thankfully a new edition was released a few years ago.
With that inspiration in mind, I wanted to play with the flavor of the cake so I opened up the fridge and grabbed a tub of red miso paste (inspired by an email exchange about cake with Ali). You might associate miso with more savory flavors, but its rich umami flavor marries beautifully with butter, caramelized fruit, and brown sugar.
The finished cake isn’t exactly salty or savory, but the flavor is deep and well rounded. It's the kind of dessert that will make your family or guests scratch their heads a bit, trying to put their finger on exactly what they are tasting. You get the joy of the big reveal when you tell all of them it’s miso!
I baked this cake both rightside up and upside down, meaning I baked one version as an upside-down cake with caramelized pineapple then tried it again with peaches on top.
I had a bag of peach slices kicking around the freezer and thought they might make a nice addition to the mix. I thawed them and drained any excess liquid, then placed them on top of the batter with a sprinkle of crunchy sugar and a gorgeous caramelized top emerged. For this version I skipped the caramel.
I liked both versions a lot. The upside-down cake felt like a fun dessert served with ice cream and the version with peaches on top was more like a snacking cake that would be nice to have with afternoon tea. Either way, you can’t miss.
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