Pineapple Upside Down Cake is a favorite for one of my SILs. Even though her birthday is in February, doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a little summertime treat. This particular recipe from Alex Guarnaschelli’s ‘The Home Cook‘ is quite different than your average Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I really liked some of the different elements and I hesitate to criticize a respected chef’s recipe, but would correct some of the measurements and ingredients listed. (The online version of this recipe bears some of the corrections I would have made.)

>Instead of 6-7 1in slices of pineapple, I would cut 7-8 1/2in slices.
>Instead of 3/4c of packed brown sugar, I would reduce it by 1/3 to 1/2c of brown sugar.
>I would either increase the batter by 50% for the 12in skillet or reduce the pan size to a standard 9-10in skillet.
>For the “Caramel,” I didn’t really feel like this was a caramel per se. To bring it closer to a caramel, I would swap out the granulated sugar for brown sugar. This felt more like a simple syrup.
>DO NOT omit the pink peppercorns. This ingredient not only tied everything together, but enhanced all the flavors amazingly! It made it feel like an island/Caribbean treat!

Over all, this dessert was really good and well worth making! Even though it “served 6-8, it was so good that there was none leftover at the end of the meal of 6 adults and 1 toddler (who I fed plenty of bites of mine)! I would definitely make this recipe again given the previous amendments. But honestly often that’s what “home-cooking” is. Trial-and-error.

What’s one recipe you’ve “altered” to make your own?