Pineapple Upside Down Cheesecake – Best Recipe

For a couple of years I had the idea of sharing with you retro or vintage recipes. A sort of “saga” that would gather some recipes with origins between the years 1920-1960. Those of you who have been reading me for a long time, know that I have a special devotion for this kind of recipes and style. I don’t know if what attracts me so much is the mix of somewhat tacky, but elegant compositions. With that touch that wants to show the interest to surprise our family and friends, but at the same time that abuses a little of an excess of decoration. I think they have a certain charm. I like them a lot. The thing is that, finally, after gathering some recipes I am going to share with you this little recipe book with recipes from this time of the year.

The first recipe of this compilation is this Pineapple Upside Down Cheesecake – Best Recipe. Famous pineapple upside down cake, but also accompanied by a cheesecake base. The original recipe consists only of the inverted pineapple sponge cake. But when I found this recipe combining both elements… I couldn’t resist. Who can say no to a good cheesecake?

My initial idea was just to make the pineapple upside down cake. A simple recipe to carry out and that we will have ready in a few minutes. But then this wonderful recipe with the cheesecake base appeared… Impossible to turn a blind eye to something like that. So in the end I thought, ok I need them, and I made the recipe with both elaborations.

In your case, if you wish, you don’t have to prepare both. You can make just the Pineapple Upside Down Cake, or even prepare the cheesecake and omit the cake. Of course, I warn you in advance that the combination of the two recipes in the same dish is awesome.

Upside Down Cakes.

According to most historians, it was at the end of the 19th century when the term “upside down cake” began to appear. Until that time, this type of cake was known under the term “skillet cakes“.

The reason for this is that, until that time, ovens were not always accessible, skillet cakes were born out of practicality. They were made in the popular cast-iron skillets on top of stoves. The first inverted cakes were made with seasonal fruits such as apples and cherries; canned pineapple had not yet been invented.

A recipe of French origin, similar to this preparation, was the Apple Tarte Tatin, created in the 1880s. On my website you also have this option with quinces, this one with peaches and this one with strawberries and rhubarb.

According to Gil Marks, who wrote about pineapple cake for Tori Avey, the first known use of the term “upside-down cake” was in 1923, for a cake made with dried plums (about 10 years ago, Oh my God!, I left you this Plum Marzipan Upside Down Cake and this one made with blood oranges).

It is likely that the name derived from “upside-down pies”, which appeared in the previous decade.

Pineapple, a luxury not available to everyone.

George Washington wrote that of all fruits, he liked none so much as the pineapple. He first encountered this fruit in Barbados and later bought it whenever possible from the ship captains who traded their wares bringing them from the West Indies. He was one of the lucky few to enjoy this fruit.

It was a very expensive fruit at the time, so much so that some hostesses would rent the fruit from bakers to display as a centerpiece, and then return it uneaten. The pineapple was rented again and again, until it rotted. I find this fact unbelievable… One more proof of how little we value everything we have within our reach today. We are privileged and we are not aware of it.

In British and American cookbooks of the 18th and 19th centuries, recipes with pineapple occasionally appear. But most of them were just instructions for cutting and serving the fruit raw, or for preserving it. As the 19th century progressed, more pineapples were imported from Florida, the Caribbean and Central America, with a consequent increase in recipes for using them. Most were recipes for preserves, compotes and cold dishes such as pineapple salad, ice cream and Bavarian cream.

The manufacture of canned pineapple did not begin until 1901, when Jim Dole founded the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (actually Dole Company) and began producing and marketing massive quantities of canned pineapple.

Pineapples had been grown in Hawaii since the early 1800s, and there were canneries as early as the 1880s, but none on the scale of Dole’s. It had a machine capable of peeling, coring and cutting 100 pineapples per minute. Soon, he and other Hawaiian producers were producing so much pineapple that they needed an advertising campaign to convince Americans to buy it all.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake origin.

In 1925, the Hawaiian Pineapple Company sponsored a pineapple recipe contest in which judges from Fannie Farmer’s School, Good Housekeeping and McCall’s Magazine participated. Reportedly, 2,500 of the 60,000 entries were pineapple upside down cake recipes. The company decided to run an announcement about the flood of pineapple upside-down cake recipes it received, leading to the incredible popularity of this recipe.

The winner was a pineapple upside-down cake from Mrs. Robert Davis of Norfolk, Virginia. Dole widely promoted Mrs. Davis’ winning recipe, and soon the pineapple upside-down cake became one of the most popular cakes in North America.

Pineapple upside-down cakes began appearing in magazines, cookbooks and advertisements. In 1927, a booklet entitled Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes was published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Home Economics and written by Ruth Van Deman and Fanny Walker Yeatman. The booklet was a compilation of 70 menus and some 300 recipes broadcast between October 1926 and June 1927 on the radio service’s “Housekeepers’ Chat” programs.

The first two printings of this recipe were found in a 1924 Seattle charity cookbook under the name Pineapple Glacé and, in a 1925 women’s magazine, there was a full-page ad for Gold Medal flour.

Maraschino cherries had become very popular in the United States in the early 20th century, which may explain why they were chosen as a garnish for this tart. It is likely that artificially dyed cherries were used in the cakes of the 1920s.

During the 1930s, the pie was considered less elegant, but was no less popular. A 1934 article stated that “no woman can really consider herself a finished amateur pastry chef until she has at some point in her career baked an upside-down cake.” In the 1930s, there were many recipes that made the cake with other fruits such as peach and apricot. Also in the 1930s, Omega flour ran an ad in which it gave away an upside-down cake pan to anyone who bought a 10-pound sack of flour.

What ingredients are in Pineapple Upside Down Cake?

This is a really simple cake to make. It consists of pouring a sponge cake batter over pineapple slices that rest on a base of brown sugar and butter, with which we can make a kind of caramel. It is usually made in a frying pan or skillet, although nowadays we can make it in a baking pan. Sometimes pecans and maraschino or candied cherries are added. Although the latter are very common since they add a touch of color.

It is then baked and, finally, it is turned upside down on a dish so that the bottom becomes the top. Hence its name “upside down” or “inverted”.

But… Let’s give it a little twist. In addition to preparing this wonderful Pineapple Upside Down Cake, we will prepare a soft and delicate cheesecake to be placed on the bottom, as a base. The texture of this cheesecake is very reminiscent of a mousse. The cheese flavor is intense… Each spoonful melts in the mouth. A real delight.

Of course, the base of the cheesecake could not be other than the famous base of crushed cookies and butter.

As much as I have searched, I have not been able to find the origin of this incredible combination; cheesecake and pineapple upside down cake. I’ve seen many recipes and even a recipe from The Cheesecake Factory, but it doesn’t detail who the creator was. So if any of you know him, I’ll be happy to read it so I can update the post!