NIGELLA LAWSON'S PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

 This is a bit before my time, but I have vague nursery memories of a friend of my grandmother's making a version of this, which she would serve with a warm sauce made of pineapple juice thickened with - I imagine - cornflour. That I can do without, but I am still of the mind that it is perfectly all right to make this with canned pineapple rings. I feel it is slightly bad sport to start peeling and slicing your own pineapple.
Anyway, canned pineapple is just fine, though I advise going for the one in its own juice rather than in syrup, and I add some of the juice to the sponge, too. This seems to make it light and fluffy.

INGREDIENTS

butter (for greasing)

2 tablespoons sugar

6 slices canned pineapple in juice (plus 3 tablespoons of the juice)

11 glace cherries (approx. 75g total weight)

100 grams plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100 grams soft butter

100 grams caster sugar

2 large eggs

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C Fan/gas mark 6/400ºF. Butter a tarte Tatin tin (24cm/9 inches wide at the top and 20cm/8 inches diameter at the bottom) or use a 23cm / 8-9 inch cake tin (neither loose-bottomed nor springform).
2. Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of sugar on top of the buttered base, and then arrange the pineapple slices to make a circular pattern as in the picture.
3. Fill each pineapple ring with a glace cherry, and then dot one in each of the spaces in between.
4. Put the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, butter, caster sugar and eggs into a food processor and run the motor until the batter is smooth. Then pour in the 3 tablespoons of pineapple juice to thin it a little.
5. Pour this mixture carefully over the cherry-studded pineapple rings; it will only just cover it, so spread it out gently.
6. Bake for 30 minutes, then ease a spatula around the edge of the tin, place a plate on top and, with one deft - ha! - move, turn it upside-down.