salty mezcal pineapple upside-down cake
I like things that dance the line, that border on contradiction. The line between simple and complex, easy and hard, slow and fast, crazy and sane. It’s a theme that plays through my life. Something I am not only drawn to in things, people, experiences, but also something that I often always seem to be creating within myself. For better or worse. This dance…. it creates layers, it keeps things interesting, it births mystery.
While I seem to seek these borderline contractions everywhere, I particularly seek them out in food, in dining experience, and in creating recipes. And the current line that I am dancing on, one that I am almost always on, is that line between simple and complicated. I just love food and recipes that give the impression of being more complex, but that are actually quite simple, paired down to only the essentials.
I have been working on this particular recipe for months, starting with a more complex recipe, but then slowly working toward making it simple. And what I found, as with most things, the more I paired it down, each time I removed one more bowl, one more excess ingredient, one more step, the cake continued to get better and better. Until finally I had a cake that was dancing all sorts of lines: classic but new, sweet but savory, simple but complex, moist but crisp.
This cake highlights three favorite ingredients of mine…. pineapple, mezcal, and salt, while also taking on a few other favorites in the undertones, like coconut and orange. And since it is a recipe I have been working on for the past few months while here in Mexico, it has become a kind of celebration of the seven (SEVEN!) months I have been living here. It’s a cake that I have used to make new friends, as well as satiate visiting old friends (sometimes like savages, at the hour 1:00am, lol). It’s also a cake I baked for myself this morning at 6am, when I couldn’t sleep, as a ways to use up my last pineapple and a few other ingredients in this apartment, to celebrate a move to a newer, more permanent home here, and that I will be living in Mexico City for much longer (more on that another time). But for now, we have this cake…. to share. You and me. A really tasty, really indulgent cake. A cake that is topped with the most celebratory mezcal soaked pineapple… the appearance of a nice, innocent cake that is actually not that innocent. A cake of contradictions, the best kind.
SALTY PINEAPPLE MEZCAL upside-down cake
While mezcal is my personal liquor of choice, you can also make this cake using tequila or rum (both would be delicious) OR, of course, you can leave out the booze all-together, especially if you are serving this to kids (the pineapple ends up being quite boozy, be warned). You will likely have a little leftover pineapple, and the booze it was marinating in. You will want to save that, covered, in the fridge, for cocktails (or eat and drink yourself while your cake is baking…. no judgements here what-so-ever). This cake would be extra special served with some ice cream, or creme fresh.
INGREDIENTS
Topping:
1 small pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced into 1/8” thick rounds (and then sliced in half, like I did, if you prefer)
1/2 cup of mezcal
90g (1 stick) of unsalted butter
½ cup / 100g of panela (or packed light brown sugar)
1 teaspoon of salt
Cake:
190g (1 cup) of all-purpose flour
150g (¾ cup) of sugar
½ teaspoon of salt
½ tsp baking soda
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup of coconut milk
90g (1 stick) butter, melted
1 tablespoon of orange juice
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
METHOD
*Pre-heat the oven to 350F / 175F
Make the topping:
Place the sliced pineapple into a small baking sheet, and pour the mezcal over top. Marinated for overnight, or for a couple of hours.
Melt the butter in a 9” cast iron, or a regular skillet pan over medium heat. Add the panela (or light brown sugar) and salt, and cook while stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved, about five minutes. Remove from the heat, and add the pineapples, creating whatever design you like (you can use mine as an example above, or google for a more classic concentric circle look). Set aside while you prepare the batter.
Make the batter and bake the cake:
In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Stir to combine. Then make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the eggs, coconut milk, melted butter, orange juice, and vanilla and stir to combine within the well, and then fold into the flour mixture until a smooth batter is formed. Pour the batter into the skillet over the pineapples, and smooth the top. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. I’d encourage you to bake a little longer (maybe about 5 or so minutes past done) if you want some crispy edges. When the cake is done, allow to rest for at least 10 minutes, and then, using a plate that is slightly larger than the skillet, hold the plate up against the skillet and carefully flip the cake onto the plate. You can enjoy warm, or if you will wait then transfer to a wire rack to cool.