Spiced Pineapple Toffee Cake

When I was younger, my family and I became great friends with our next door neighbours.

It was very Wisteria Lane, and by that I mean, very friendly and fun, except my mother wasn’t a redhead, wielding baskets of cookies and my neighbours were happy cheerful people from El Salvador, not homicidal people my mysterious pasts, hell-bent on revenge.

I used to spend a lot of time over at the neighbours’ home and as a result, spent many meal times sharing food with them around their tiny table in their cosy kitchen. Over the years, I tried pupusas and curtido, tamales and a wonderful time of pineapple cake/bread, the taste of which stays with me to this day and I often crave. I never did find out the name of it and many hours of scouring the web hasn’t turned up anything that was exactly the same as what I tried, but with this cake that I made recently, it replicated those flavours beautifully- a nice crumb with lovely sweetness and the warmth of the caramelised pineapple on top of the cake and a rich caramel/toffee to finish it off.

It was an experiment to see if I could replicate the flavours and I’m proud to say that it is as close as I will get after all these years.

If anyone out there happens to know the name of the pineapple cake/bread, feel free to post a comment…or even better, a recipe!

A few notes about this recipe: I used pineapple pieces because I didn’t have any rings on hand. I also reserved the juice from the can and used it instead of milk, which the original recipe called for. I also made an extra batch of the caramel/toffee in addition to the recipe to pour over the top as it didn’t come out caramelised enough on top for my liking.

Ingredients

Cake

• 440g can pineapple thins in natural juice, drained
  
• 125g butter, softened
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp mixed spice
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups self-raising flour, sifted
• 1/2 cup plain flour, sifted
• 1/2 cup pineapple juice

Topping

• 75g butter, melted
• 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease a 6cm-deep, 22cm round (base) cake pan. Line base and side with baking paper.
2. To make the topping, whisk butter and sugar together in a bowl until combined. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Pat pineapple dry with paper towel. Arrange pineapple over caramel, pressing down into caramel. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Add flours and milk. Stir to combine. Spoon mixture over pineapple. Smooth top.
4. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of cake comes out clean (cover loosely with foil if over-browning during cooking). Stand in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out upside down onto a plate and drizzle with extra caramel.

Recipe Inspiration