4 Ingredient Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Find more recipes at fussfreeflavours.com

5 from 21 votes

This pineapple upside-down cake is so easy to make - it uses just 4 ingredients and needs no special equipment - tastes delicious and keeps well too. Not only that but it is vegan and fat free. This post contains step by step photos and tips to enable anyone to make this cake. No cake mix. Vegan and fat free!

Servings:

Author: Helen Best-Shaw

Prep Time15

Cook Time30

Total Time45

Ingredients

410 g canned pineapple rings in juice
10 glacé cherries
100 g caster sugar - (I prefer golden)
185 g self raising flour

Instructions

Measure out the self-raising flour and sugar. Switch the oven on to 170°C(Fan)/340°F/Gas Mark 5 to heat up. The cake needs to go into a hot oven, so you might want to wait for it to reach temperature before you start to mix the batter.
Grease a loose bottomed 8" / 20cm cake tin with vegetable oil or cake release spray, and line the bottom with baking paper (greaseproof paper or baking parchment). Lightly oil the top of the paper. Place the cake tin onto a piece of kitchen foil on a baking tray.
Drain the juice from the tin of pineapple rings, keeping both the pineapple and the juice. Pour the juice into a 1 litre/2 pint mixing bowl, and add 2tbs of cold water.
Place a pineapple ring in the centre of the tin and arrange 6 more around it. You may need to trim some of their outside edge off to make them fit. Cut 4 glacé cherries in half and place in the centre of each pineapple ring.
Finely chop the remaining pineapple and any trimmings, as well as the remaining 6 glacé cherries, and add to the juice.
Add the flour and sugar to the juice and mix with a spoon or spatula to make a thick batter. The acidic pineapple juice reacts with the raising agent in the flour and the batter will develop an airy mousse like texture.
Quickly spread the batter over the pineapple rings and glace cherries, gently shake the cake pan from side to side to spread the batter out and immediately put in the oven to bake for 35 minutes.
Test to see if the cake is cooked. When it's ready the top will be golden and springy to touch. A tooth pick pushed into the middle of the cake will come out clean. If needed return the cake to the oven for another 5 minutes before checking again.
Run a knife round the edge to make sure the cake hasn't stuck to the pan. I find the easiest way to remove a cake from a loose bottomed pan is to stand the pan on an unopened can and gently push down on the cake pan.
Put a wire cooling rack over the cake and carefully flip it over, so that the pineapple is on top. Use a pointed knife to gently lift the base of the cake pan, checking it hasn't stuck around the edge, and lift it off. Slowly and carefully peel off the parchment paper using a knife if any fruit gets stuck to it.

Notes

If you don't have self raising flour then add 2 teaspoons of baking powder to regular cake or plain flour and mix well before using.
You can make a more grown up version by substituting maraschino cherries instead of glace.
I use golden caster sugar - but any caster sugar is fine. Even granulated will work.
Make sure you strain the pineapple juice well.
Because of the reaction between the raising agent and the pineapple juice you need to bake the cake as soon as you have mixed the batter.
Heat the oven and prepare the cake pan before you make the batter.
This fat free cake is far better on the second day after the sponge has absorbed more juice from the fruit. (The cake is fine left at room temperature for a day, but if the weather is hot, or for any longer than a day, wrap and keep in the fridge)

Nutritional Information

This recipe is 8 Weight Watchers Smart Points per portion

• Please note that the nutrition information provided below is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

• Unless stated otherwise cup conversions have been made with an online tool. For accuracy please check with your favoured conversion tool. We recommend buying inexpensive digital kitchen scales.