Pineapple upside-down cake by Marcus Wareing

Having purchased the Great British Chefs Feastive app I was looking forward to try some of the recipes straight away. However, my eminent holiday to Brazil was looming and as per usual I ran out of time, so I thought I would try Marcus Wareing Pineapple upside-down cake recipe in a tropical surrounding, see if I could get all ingredients or if I would have to adapt if I couldn’t find some of it. In the spirit of Great British Chefs, which aims to connect its chefs with food lovers around the world, I set off to get the ingredients in my local street market and supermarket in São Paulo.

I found most of the ingredients without difficulty. But obviously, life is never simple…

Ingredients:
Spiced Caramel
135 ml of glucose syrop – in Brazil is called Karo
175 g caster sugar
300 ml of cream
15g unsalted butter
5g salt
80ml rum

Pineapple Upside-down cake:
150g butter, softened
150g of self-raising flour – in Brazil we don’t have this type of flour, so I used plain flour and added 1 tea spoon of baking powder
150g of caster sugar
2 eggs
1 pinch of salt
4 fresh pineapples cut to fit my ramekins

To plate:
This recipe asks for fresh clotted cream, which comes from Devon and Cornwall – so not available in Brazil….
I looked outside my window in a balmy 30C afternoon thinking how to get around it so
I got a vanilla ice cream to accompany this cake. That was fitting with the present weather.

Photo by Pedro Paulo – my brother

Method
Heat the cream. Saturate the glucose and sugar with a little water and put on high heat. Cook a dark caramel.
Keep simmering until fully emulsified and thick. Take it off the heat and whisk in the butter, salt and rum. Set aside.
To make the cake, heat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar till pale and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs and mix well. Fold in the flour and the salt.
Butter well the moulds; I used ramekins, out enough caramel into them to cover the base. Reserve the rest of the caramel. Put a pineapple ring in each mould.
Fill the rest of the moulds with the cake mixture and put into the oven to cook. When light brown, remove from the oven and let it cool. Carefully slide the cakes from their moulds.
Plate it and decorate with the rest of the caramel and a quenelle of cream or ice cream!

My presentation was far from perfect, but this time I quite liked the rustic look of it. My mother loved it. This cake is easy to make, the sponge is light and toffee/caramel pineapple was full of flavour and textures. In this case, the ice cream was a good substitute for the clotted cream. The instructions are uncomplicated if you have a bit of baking experience.
I love the suggestion of wine paring; to be able to effortlessly share the recipe and experience on social medias or via email.
I am looking forward to try more recipes soon. Have a look at Great British Chefs website for more details on an exclusive dinner for two with wine paring, a kitchen visit and a signed book of Marcus Wareing book. Furthermore, The Berkeley, which boasts two Michelin stars, is offering a chauffer driven service to finish off the experience in style. Click here
To buy the app, a great stocking filler for a foodie:
http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/the-app

This post was published at the Great British Chefs Blog : Here

HAPPY CHRISTMAS !