Thursday, September 29, 2016

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes, Gluten-free, Dairy-free and all that

Another experiment in making a recipe gluten-free, dairy-free and substituting coconut sugar in place of brown sugar. Normally for Pineapple Upside Down Cake, you just make a regular cake, or maybe use pineapple juice in place of water. Instead of doing that, I used a secret family recipe for Yum Yum cake, which has pineapple in the cake and instead of traditional frosting, it has a warm milk, sugar, butter mixture that you pour over the cake hot from the oven, so that it makes the cake moist and delicious.

Yum Yum Cake should have it's own post, but I don't have a picture of it right now, so I'll just post the recipe and how I altered it for Pineapple Upside Down Cake.

In this picture from the top down, there are mini cupcakes without the upside down-ness "topping,"
in the 2nd and 3rd rows are pineapple tidbits with the honey/molasses mixture,
4th and 5th rows have crushed pineapple with brown sugar (I ran out of the other mixture!)
and the 6th row has the crushed pineapple with the honey/molasses mixture.
What, I don't fill the cups from one end to the other, I start at one end jump to the other and end somewhere in the middle, doesn't everyone?


That's why they don't all look the same, I was using a Tablespoon of the honey/molasses mixture in each muffin cup, but ran out before filling all 24. I also had some batter left over after filling the 24, which is why I ended up with 6 mini muffins with no upside down pineapple honey/molasses goodness.
This pic is from the other angle, see the mini muffins, I mean cupcakes, but cupcakes without frosting are really muffins, anyway, they are at the bottom of this pic.


And now, the part we've all been waiting for: The Recipe(s)!

I used this recipe for the butter&brown sugar per cupcake cup ratio:
Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes from The Girl Who Ate Everything

And really, her blog is beautiful with clearer instructions for the whole thing and pictures actually worthy of sharing.
But, even though mine aren't as pretty, they still got devoured by my hungry family and with compliments from the friends with whom I shared them, (except not by picky eater #2, he wouldn't taste them, because apparently he doesn't like pineapple!)

Yum Yum Cake
2 C all-purpose flour (to make GF, use 1 C buckwheat flour, 1 C oat flour)
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 eggs
1 1/2 C white sugar (or substitute coconut sugar)
2 C crushed pineapple with juice

Stir together and pour in ungreased 9x13" cake pan.
Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes.

Frosting for Yum Yum Cake: Have ready and hot when cake is done:
1 C sugar
1 C canned milk (note to self: try subbing coconut milk or almond milk, and coconut oil in place of butter)
1/2 C butter (or up to 3/4 C if you really like butter!)

Bring to a boil before cake comes out of the oven, until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and
Add 1 1/2 C nuts (chopped walnuts or pecans are great)
        1 1/2 C coconut flakes
        1 1/2 teaspoons Vanilla
Pour over cake immediately after it is removed from the oven.

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So, for my cupcakes, I used the above cake recipe, but not the frosting.
Here's my GF, DF pineapple upside down topping:
1/2 C coconut oil, melted
1 C coconut sugar
1/4 C honey
1/4 C molasses

I brought this to a rolling boil. I don't know if that was a good idea or not.
For a cake, just pour all of it into a 9x13" cake pan, but for cupcakes spoon 1 Tablespoon of that mixture into each muffin cup, or rather a little less, since I ran out after filling 18, (as I explained above the first picture).
For the remaining six, I just scooped a teaspoon of coconut oil and a Tablespoon of brown sugar. It was good both ways! So, Yes, it totally works to substitute coconut oil in place of butter in pineapple upside down cake to make it dairy free!
No need to grease the cups since the coconut oil is super greasy. It started to solidify into a candy-like creation as I was making the pineapple tidbits into crushed pineapple and making the cake batter, but it all blended together in the oven nicely and didn't turn into crunchy candy once they cooled down. I was worried about that.

On top of the T of oil/sugar/honey/molasses mixture, put pineapple tidbits or crushed pineapple in a layer, then pour cake batter on top of that nearly to the top.
Bake for 30ish minutes in a preheated oven (350F is the magic number).
Let them cool for about five minutes before inverting onto waxed paper.
Enjoy the good times.

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