Tony Claxton's Recipes
Pineapple Upside-Down
Cornmeal Cake		    

The flavor of the corn meal combined with the pineapple and brown sugar makes this one of my favorite cakes. It dries out fairly quickly, so it won't keep as well as some other cakes. Underbaking the cake a little helps with this though. If you don't like the taste or the extra density of the cake caused by the corn meal, use whatever cake recipe you like, including boxed mixes. Yellow is the common type. A good addition to the cake is about 1/2 C of chopped pecans sprinkled over the topping before adding the batter.

                                   

Ingredients
Corn Meal Mush:
3/4 C - Whole Milk
1 C - Corn Meal

Topping:
4 oz - Unsalted Butter
1 C - Brown Sugar
7 Slices - Canned Pineapple
7 - Maraschino Cherries
3 T - Juice From Pineapple 		      Cake Batter:
1 C - Flour
2 t - Baking Powder
1/2 t - Salt
3 - Eggs
3/4 C - Sugar
1/2 C - Cooking Oil
Corn Meal Mush
Instructions
  • Preheat oven to 350°
  • Heat milk to boiling in a microwave
  • Stir in corn meal and set aside for 30 minutes
  • Over medium heat, melt the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet
  • After the butter melts add brown sugar and stir until melted, about 5 minutes
  • Remove from heat and add pineapple, putting one slice in the center and arranging the other 6 slices around it
  • Put the cherries in the center of each slice of pineapple
  • Drizzle pineapple juice over pineapple and cherries
  • Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl and set aside
  • Whisk eggs and sugar together in a separate mixing bowl then whisk in oil
  • Add the corn meal mush to egg mixture and whisk to combine
  • Add egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir just to combine
  • Pour batter over the topping in the skillet
  • Bake for 40 to 45 minutes
  • Allow to cool for about 30 minutes before turning out on a serving platter


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