Today is Pineapple Upside Down Cake Day!
Pineapple Upside Down Cakes were not called by that name until the mid-19th Century. I have a wonderful cookbook over 100 years old which calls it a fruit cake. It was made in a cast iron skillet on top of the wood stove. The recipe is said to date back to the middle ages, using all kinds of various fruits.
The classic American Pineapple Upside Down Cake came around sometime after 1903, after Jim Dole invented canned pineapple. The Hawaiian Pineapple Co. (now Dole Pineapple) held a pineapple recipe contest in 1925. One hundred winning recipes would be published in a cookbook the following year. Over 60,000 recipes were sent in—2,500 of which were for Pineapple Upside Down Cake.
It has been a popular dessert ever since. My husband says he knew it as Pineapple Upside Down Rum Cake. I remember it by that name, too—though in our house there wasn’t any rum in the recipe!
No one
seems to know how the holiday celebrating Pineapple Upside Down Cake
actually started, but I think it is a great idea. Tonight I'm breaking
out my old recipe book.
Happy Pineapple Upside Down Cake Day!
* NOTE: You don't have to stick to the theme I choose each Friday. Just put up the postcards you love and tell us why you like them.
