no tea after 12

Looks good right? Looks edible? One might even say tantalising...well it was a damn good looking failure. 

Ever since I've known him, Jamie has had this weird obsession with Pineapple Upside-Down cake...I ask what kind of cake he wants and his standard answer is Pineapple Upside-Down cake. I've asked many times over the years and I can't really reason as to why I'd never made one, but after 7 years, its just become one of our regular jokes. I ask, he answers, then I make something with chocolate. So then I got to thinking, as I'd never made a pineapple cake, or any cake of the upside down variety, that I'm not quite sure if I've ever even had this cake myself. I've seen it made plenty 'o time on any manner of retro foodie programs, but I've never actually eaten this fruity delicacy. Is this possible? OK maybe I had a slice in the mid-1980's but I was under the age of ten and any foodie defining moments at that age involved macaroni & cheese or hot dogs.  

So I went ahead and made this cake. I made the la-de-da rum-infused pan schmear and placed each and every slice of pineapple with high hopes...and beautiful though it looks, it was totally and completely undercooked in the middle. I cut into the cake and the stupid thing slid off the knife and went plop back onto the cake stand!

This came as a shocker, not only is this a Thomas Keller recipe which I followed to the letter, but I even over-cooked it according to the recipe instructions. Here is what I find most perplexing, the recipe calls for an 9-inch silicone cake pan, and they only had a 10-inch at the store where I went to buy this silicone cake pan to make this ONE recipe. Not a problem right? In this case one would just put the cake it the larger pan and start testing for doneness a bit sooner than you would as if you were making the size called for in the instructions. Done it many times before with no problems!

Not only did I use my handy dandy oven thermometer to make sure we were cooking with gas, as they say. But I followed the instructions to turn it at 15 minutes, and then as the recipe said put it back in to cook a further 20-25 minutes. I figured I'd start checking it at a further 15 (30 in total) as I had a slightly thinner cake. At 15 minutes it was still undercooked and the tester came out soggy. At 20 the tester looked almost there, and at 25 the tester came out clean and the cake was just on the edge of being too dark so I took it out. I thought it was perfect. But then it sunk. And when I turned it over onto the platter there was a lot of moisture from the pineapple which then soaked back into the cake making it both undercooked and sloppy. *huff* At least the outer perfectly cooked rim tasted like a beautifully rum-soaked slice of sunshine. 

Just imagine the disaster I would've had on my hands if I had been making the 9-inch, thicker cake as called for. So, I'm not quite sure how to proceed but I can tell you this much Keller, its not over. I'll be back to make your cake again, and I will prevail. Oh that, and I'm sure the joke will now go something like this.

Me: What kind of cake would you like?

Him: A cooked all the way through Pineapple Upside-Down cake. Please.