Alfred, Lord Tennyson advised us to "ring out the old, ring in the new" on New Year's Day. One of our friends, a wannabe rebel, would agree. He
likes to say that traditions are made to be broken. I am not sure about that-- I like the comforting reassurance of traditions-- but I would agree that traditions are made to be adapted. When I grew up in the New York area, our family's New Year's Eve tradition was to enjoy a great home-cooked meal and then to watch Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, culminating in watching the apple drop in Times Square. It was a treat, and in my younger years, a feat, to be able to stay up until midnight for the countdown. Years later and on the other side of the country, this tradition was made physically impossible by virtue of being in the wrong time zone. While most television programming is scheduled for the same adjusted time slot, you can't reschedule a live event. So watching the ball drop lost its lustre, since it felt wrong to welcome a new year at 9PM.
Then I had my own kids. Time for the tradition to be revived and adapted. Now my family spends New Year's Eve with our friend, the tradition-breaker, and his family. As before, we have a meal together at home and then watch Dick Clark's show, now hosted by Ryan Seacrest. We watch the live broadcast from Times Square, smug in knowing that unlike the Times Square revelers, we're not freezing outside, and count down to the New Year at 9PM. Our new tradition is tame, I know, but it's exactly right for families with young kids. It's hard not to feel sentimental watching your kids share in the unbelievable magic of suddenly being "one year older."
Like New Year's traditions, classic recipes are often adapted as they get passed down from generation to generation. The pineapple upside-down cake is one of those classic, all-American desserts which seems to have been around forever. It was actually created in Hawaii sometime in the 1920s, around the time that the Dole pineapple company developed methods to produce more pineapple and also to can their newly abundant harvest. The pineapple, a formerly exotic fruit that was available only to those with resources and perhaps connections, now became a populist fruit, available to all. Making a pineapple upside-down cake is more than baking, it's alchemy: a simple butter cake topped with glistening, caramelized pineapple slices becomes a special-occasion dessert.
This cake is perfect for welcoming in a New Year, and for more reasons than its deliciousness. On its own, the pineapple is considered a symbol of welcome in a wide variety of cultures, including in Colonial America, where carved images of pineapples graced everything from doors to furniture in a display of hospitality. Far away in Southeast Asia, pineapple tarts are a traditional Chinese New Year's treat in Singapore and Malaysia. Turns out that the word for pineapple in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect, is a homophone for a phrase meaning wealth and prosperity.
Tampering only a little bit with tradition, I've adapted the original Dole pineapple upside-down cake recipe into easy-to-serve, individual cakes. By baking them as individual cakes, the ratio of pineapple to cake is turned upside-down. These cakes are simple, but will pop your cork with the intensely juicy sweetness of the caramelized fruit in each bite. Excellent with champagne. With these, I am welcoming in 2011 with wishes for sweetness and prosperity.
* * *
Individual Pineapple Upside-Down Cakes
Makes 12 individual cakes.
Ingredients
1 large can (20 oz) sliced pineapple
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 stick plus 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup whole millk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
non-stick baking spray
garnish: Maracshino cherries and grated coconut
equipment: 1 cupcake/muffin tin
Technique
1. Drain pineapple slices.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Cream 1 stick butter, gradually adding the sugar; cream well.
4. Beat yolks and whites of 2 eggs separately. Add yolks to creamed mixture; mix well, then add flour and milk alternately, mixing well.
5. Fold the 2 beaten egg whites and vanilla.
6. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large frying pan, then distribute brown sugar into the melted butter to form a sauce.
7. Spray muffin cups in one 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick baking spray.
8. Spoon equal amounts of the brown sugar sauce into each muffin cup, one to two teaspoons each.
9. Add a slice of pineapple to the bottom of each muffin cup. Trim to fit the cups. (There are usually 10 slices of pineapple in each can. Put together trimmed pieces for the other two muffin cups.)
10. Spoon prepared cake batter over each slice of pineapple in each muffin cup, filling each cup 3/4 full.
11. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a 350 F oven, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean.
12. Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Then run a knife along the edges of each cup and carefully invert cakes onto a wire rack to cool. Place a baking sheet under the rack to catch sauce.
13. Garnish each cake with one maraschino cherry in the center of each pineapple slice, and sprinkle edges with coconut for a a festive, New Year's Eve party look.
First image via Wikipedia.
Happy New Year!
© 2010 Linda Shiue
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Comments
He was domestic at heart. He cooked upsidedown cakes--standing upsidedown--despite calls from friends of "Tennyson, anyone?"
Which only underlines how scrumptuous your cake looks.
Clayball, thanks for coming by. I had long been mystified by all those pineapple motifs in non-tropical New England. At first I thought it was an Italian tradition because there is a huge one at the gate marking the entrance to Federal Hill, the Italian district in Providence.
Lucy, thanks, and Happy New Year to you and your wonderful and very well fed family! Looking forward to seeing what is next for you in 2011.
Leon, thanks for sharing your wit. I'll have to see what you pen about the snow today! Stay warm and dry.
Diana ani, thanks and happy New Year!
Hi Grace, Happy New Year! Year of the Rabbit is coming up soon too! I love having two New Years.
Lezlie
Love OS recipes which are more than mere ingredients.
Happy New Year!
Your stories and notes accompanying each post are rich. I'd love a Shiue book! It would be another lifelong keeper. Perhaps Lulu publishing or some similar?
Felicia, thanks. Happy New Year!
Lezlie, Happy New Year!
Bonnie, you are too kind. Happy New Year!
o'stephanie, thank you and Happy New Year!
Scarlett, this year we ended up watching Anderson Cooper instead, but still watched the ball drop. Happy new Year!
Sheila, Happy New Year!
Phoenixwolf, thank you for coming by. Hope you like it!
xenonlit, I am so honored to get a zumapick. Happy New Year!
Bell, happy happy New Year to you, too!
maryway, I hope you had a great NYE and enjoyed the recipe.
MTodd, I think there wouldn't be enough room to put pineapple along the sides, too, but you could try with crushed instead of sliced pineapple.
Janice, Happy New Year! I made them last night again. I hope you enjoyed them, too.
CLC, thanks for coming by. Happy New Year!
scupper, thank you for your very kind and flattering compliment. I of course would love my own cookbook, too, and am reflecting, on this first day of the New Year, on whether I could pursue something like that. So I am glad to know I could sell at least one copy :) Have a fantastic New Year!