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Title: Who Invented Pineapple Upside Down Cake?
Categories: Cake Info Hawaii
Yield: 4 Servings
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Truth is-it's been with us so long, nobody seems to know how it got here. It's all-American - a classic dessert, but food experts and historians only could guess the origins of Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Everyone had something to say, of course. Nearly all recalled their mothers' or grandmothers' recipes. No two were alike, except they evoked fond memories. Pineapple Upside Down Cake is like that - symbolic of earlier days and simpler times.
"...It wasn't fancy, but it was gooey and good, and we served it with lots of whipped cream..."
"...I remember my mother cooked it on top of the stove..."
" For our family, it was a company dessert baked in the oven with pineapple, maraschino cherries and pecans..."
"... I remember my mother always cooked it in a heavy, cast iron skillet..."
Guess Again. Experts have their guesses about its date of origin:
"I think that dish appeared in the 1920's," said one.
"The 1940's - maybe the 30's," said another.
"The classic recipe had maraschino cherries, and those weren't around too much before the 1930's - so Pineapple Upside Down Cake must have been created around then," said yet another.
Food History Professor, Burt Gordon, Ph.D. explained, "My research shows that 1870 would be the time when upside-down cakes came about. The term upside-down cake' wasn't used much before the late Nineteenth Century, but that style of baking could date as far back as the Middle Ages," he said.
"Cakes - like Pineapple Upside Down Cake - didn't become vogue until the late 1800's. The term cake' wasn't used much before 1870. Pies and tarts were more common then. Some very early cookbooks printed at the turn of the century have recipes for fruit upside down cakes made with other types of fruits - apples and cherries and the like - but no mention of pineapple is made."
Food experts - being friendly types - all suggested other sources to consult: "Why don't you contact The Dole Company," they said. "They should know something about it."
"That's a good question. Real interesting," the folks at Dole said. "Don't have an answer, though."
Until now, that is! After months of searching we have most of the pieces of this particular puzzle. Now We Know...
In 1925 the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, as Dole was known then, ran an ad for a recipe contest, seeking creative and original recipes using pineapple. The chosen recipes would be published in a cookbook titled Pineapple as 100 Good Cooks Serve It. The book, published in 1926 contains a recipe for "Upside Down Cake," from Mrs. Robert Davis of Norfolk Virginia.
The contest drew a response of 60,000 recipes - 2,500 of which were for Pineapple Upside Down Cake. A $50 cash prize was given for each of the 100 recipes that were chosen for the cookbook. The contest ad ran just once in nine women's magazines including Woman's Home Companion, McCall's and Modern Priscilla. Since 2,500 Upside Down Cake recipes were submitted, it's obvious the concept was not new. But the contest certainly gave the recipe the widespread publicity. The company ran ads about the unusual response of recipes for Pineapple Upside Down Cakes - which gained the dish even more notoriety. Talk about the power of advertising!
SKILLET CAKES Here are other interesting notes about the history of Pineapple Upside Down Cake: The original recipes were made in skillets - probably cast iron - and cooked on top of the stove, rather than in the oven. This technique dates back to days when cooks ~ particularly early settlers, did not have bake ovens at home. For this reason they were nicknamed "skillet cakes."
Even today recipes are baked in skillets, sometimes, to get that old-time feeling.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER Dr. Gordon, the food history professor, has an explanation that makes the most sense. "I bet Dole applied his product to a recipe that already existed," he said.
Jim Dole invented canned pineapple in 1903. So the dish couldn't have existed before then. Chances are that Dole used his canned pineapple in an old recipe for upside-down fruit cake. And a classic was born!