I have two confessions to make.

(1) I’m sneaky. I like to bake, but I don’t have time to make amazing cakes from scratch (even though I have this jaw dropping book that i love to read for fun).

(2) I *love* caramel, especially with fruit. Pineapple upside down cake is one of my favorites - the drizzly brown sugar that coats the sour-sweet pineapple and bakes until the edges get all chewy. *sigh*

So, to solve these problems, I’ve learned that you can do spectacular things with a box cake mix if you just shake things up a little bit. My mom got me this mini bundt cake pan - it has six tiny bundt cake molds and one box cake mix can make at least twelve little cakes total. These cakes look super fancy, but they really are just fancy cupcakes. Pineapple upside down cake is perfect for this pan, because one pineapple ring fits perfectly in the bottom.

I love this with pineapple, but I ran out of pineapple rings and still had more batter - I subbed apple rings and found out that this works great with apples too. I’m basically using the side of the box, low fat version of a boxed pineapple cake mix - all that makes this fancy is the shape!

Recipe here:

Mini apple or pineapple upside-down bundt cakes

Ingredients
One box pineapple cake mix
Either - 1 large can pineapple rings in juice (or enough cans to make 12 - 13 cakes) OR fresh apples, cored and sliced into rings
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 stick butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
3 eggs

1. Drain the pineapple, reserving the juice. From one large 10-slice can, you should get 1 cup of juice. Again, you can also do this with apples, peeled and cored and sliced into rings.

2. On the stovetop, melt the butter and mix with brown sugar until you get a syrup. You may need to add more brown sugar - you want a molasses-like texture. It is about an equal ratio of butter to sugar.

(If you have extra of this left, let it cool and mix it with softened butter for a brown sugar compote butter, which would be great to spread on baked goods and to cook squash or some root veggies in.)

3. Beat together: the eggs, juice, applesauce, and cake mix.

4. Prepare the pans: spray each bundt cake mold with cooking spray, making sure that you coat the edges and middle part well so the cakes slip out easily. Put about 1 or 1 1/2 tablespoons in each, pouring it around so it spreads evenly. Put one slice of pineapple in each.

5. Pour about 1 cup of batter in each mold, gently drizzling it on top of the pineapple and around the center. They should each be filled about 3/4 full.

6. Bake for 25 minutes at 350, or until a toothpick inserted in comes out clean.

7. When they come out, gently run a thin spatula or knife around the edges and flip out immediately (while the sugar is still hot). If there remains sugar in each of the wells, scrape it out with a little spatula and brush it on onto corresponding pineapple cake. The heat of the pineapple will melt the crystallized sugar and make a glaze.

Another technique is just to pour the brown sugar/butter glaze into a round cake pan and lay thin apple slices on top. Bake just that in a 350 oven for about 10 minutes, to give the apples a head start (while you make the rest of the cake mix). Pour the batter in and bake until done, depending on what size your pan is!

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 10:23 am . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.