Upside down cake

This is supposedly pineapple upside down cake but as you can see there are more raisins in it than pineapple (because I love crusted raisins, that’s why!).  And yes, I use raisins instead of maraschino cherries for two reasons: 1) cherries are expensive, 2) it’s only me who’d be eating the cake if it’s cherries that are in it.  Speaking of costs, back home home when I was a kid, I’d often wish my mom would used tinned pineapples when she made upside down cake (I thought that was posh)–but it was cheaper for her to buy fresh pineapples and boil them in syrup!

As you can see from the pictures below, this is an easy recipe–no need to caramelise the sugar (‘learned this from my mother).  Just sprinkle the demerara sugar on a greased tray, arrange your raisins and pineapples (I could not be bothered with presentation as this is just for our own consumption), then pour in the batter, pop in an oven pre-heated to 175C and bake for 45 minutes.  For the batter I use the standard yellow cake recipe.

Ingredients for the topping:
est. 1 cup demerara sugar
est. 1 cup raisins
est. 2 cups pineapple chunks

Ingredients for the batter:
1 cup shortening
2 cups white sugar (I usually reduce this to half)
4 eggs
2 tsps vanilla
2 3/4 cups plain flour
3 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups milk

Procedure:
1. Prepare your tray by greasing and lining with the demerara sugar, raisins and pineapples.
2. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
3. Creme shortening and sugar together…
4. … Then beat in the eggs and the vanilla…
5. … And add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk.
6. Pour in a greased tray lined with demerara/brown sugar, raisins and pineapples.
7. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 175C.