Yield: Serves 8 to 10 | Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes, plus 30 minutes cooling time
This soft, sweet cake makes a pretty addition to any post-dinner spread. The contrast between the golden pineapple slices, which grew in popularity after James Dole purchased nearly the entire island of Lanai in Hawaii to transform it into a pineapple farm in the 1920s, and the fiery red maraschino cherries, popularized in the post-Prohibition era after the cherries were stored in a sugar syrup instead of alcohol, catches my eye every time.
INGREDIENTS
6 tablespoons (¾ stick) unsalted butter
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
7–8 slices canned pineapple
14 maraschino cherries
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
Pinch of kosher salt
1 large egg
½ cup buttermilk
⅓ cup sour cream
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon rum extract
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In a small bowl, melt the butter in the microwave.
- Pour the melted butter evenly into a 9-inch springform cake pan set on top of a baking sheet.
- Sprinkle the brown sugar over the melted butter.
- Add 5 whole slices of pineapple in the pan. (See photo.)
- Halve 2 pineapple slices and place them between the whole slices.
- Place one cherry in the center cut-outs of both the whole and halved slices and in any outside gaps. (See photo.)
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, cardamom, and salt.
- In a 2-cup liquid measuring cup, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, sour cream, vegetable oil, vanilla, and rum extract.
- Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and fold it in with a spatula just until combined. Do not overmix.
- Carefully pour the batter over the pineapple in the pan.
- Bake for 40 minutes, or until the cake is set and golden.
- Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for at least 30 minutes or longer before removing the springform pan ring and inverting onto a cake plate. Slice and serve.