Everyone over the age of 96 remembers the Parade Magazine supplement from the Sunday Paper, back in the day. You don't? Then you must be younger than 95. Sorry you missed "the good old days" when Elvis, Chubby Checker, and Herman and the Hermits were Happening things. Probably means you also don't remember the Sock Hop at the Wahabi Shriner's Temple, or the Wagon Wheel Club above the Mayflower Grill.
Back when I was just a young whippersnapper (in the 50s and 60s), during the perfect days of America before hundred-mile-away traveling "Select T-Ball League" games were a thing, Mom loved to read the Parade Magazine on Sunday. I can't remember ever seeing an article about T-Ball in it, but it was full of great articles about TV and Movie celebrities, light news, the latest recipes and, along with 8-10 pages of color cartoon strips, helped make the Sunday Newspaper special, unless Pee Wee Reese and Dizzy Dean were on the tube, doing a Yankees Game.
Wikipedia says the last issue of Parade was published on November 13, 2022. In its heyday (is that actually a word?), Parade was the most widely read magazine in the US, with a circulation of 32 million and a readership of 54.1 million.
At our house, we were fortunate, in that we got to enjoy many of the latest recipes, pulled straight from the pages of the cooking section of the Parade Magazine by mom. Those were the pre-BBC (Bell's Best Cookbook) days, and our family budget did not include money for cookbooks, so Parade was mom's go-to recipe source. Parade introduced us to all sorts of new tasty, sometimes exotic, eats, like Hamburger Meat Stroganoff, made with exotic ingredients like ground beef, Campbell's Mushroom Soup, actual mushrooms from a can, and onions, which went in every casserole ever made back then. It was cooked in mom's cast iron skillet and served over rice at our house, since noodles were hardly ever in the pantry. After the first attempt at sticking to the Parade recipe for stroganoff, mom dropped the tiny can of mushrooms, which were too expensive to add to the budget.
I don't remember when mom baked her first pineapple upside-down cake, but I do know the recipe came from the Parade Magazine, because I remember the Parade recipe page. ripped out and stored for future use in her loose filed, in no order, recipe file - kept in a cigar box in the drawer of the dining room China cabinet. No one smoked at our house, so I have no idea where the cigar box came from, but the cake recipe came from Parade and included a beautiful color photograph, pretty much exactly like the header one on this post. Just like the Stroganoff, Pineapple upside-down cake was cooked in her 10-inch cast iron skillet.
Here comes another useless daydream from ZeroBear - I'd give anything to still have the cigar box full of aggies and cat eyes I once had. Sadly, all of mine are now stored in Jars.
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Ingredients:
Cake:
2 cups (390g) Martha White Self-Rising
Flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs, room temp.
Juice from a 20 oz can of pineapple
slices in 100% juice
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pineapple Slice Layer:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
Maraschino cherries
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325F.
Whisk flour and salt together and set aside.
Drain 3/4 cup of pineapple juice from pineapple rings and set aside. For mine, that was almost exactly the amount of juice in the can.
Lightly coat bottom and edges of a 10-inch cast iron skillet with butter.
Arrange the pineapple rings in skillet.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, add butter and mix on medium-low until softened. Slowly add sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 7 minutes).
Add one egg at a time and beat it into the butter until fully incorporated before adding another.
Reduce speed to low. and add flour and pineapple juice. Alternate between adding a little flour, followed by adding a little pineapple juice, (flour, juice, flour, juice, flour), until all of the flour and pineapple juice have been added.
I had three pineapple rings left after placing the slices in the buttered skillet, so I cut those three slices into bits and mixed them into the batter at this point, mixing it long enough to break them up into small bits. Mixing both juice and pineapple bits into the batter gives the cake a really good pineapple flavor.
Add melted butter to the skillet, over the pineapple slices, then crumble 1/4 cup of brown sugar over the buttered slices. then place a maraschino cherry to the middle of each pineapple slice
Carefully spoon in batter, smooth it out evenly, and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. or until a toothpick inserted into the cake layer comes out clean. Use a sheet under the skillet while baking in the oven to keep any overflow of sugar that might cook out from messing up the oven.
Cool for 20 minutes then run a knife blade around the cake-to-skillet edge to loosen the cake before flipping it onto a cake plate. Once plated, allow it to cool completely before slicing.
God Bless You.
16 comments:
Pineapple is my favorite vegetable and Pineapple Upside Down cake is my favorite pudding.
But you didn't offer any thoughts on your opening question, 'Why Do We No Longer Bake This Way?'.
It was a rhetorical question. A rhetorical question while he was being reasonable.
Memories delicious memories.
I loved Parade and that’s a beautiful cake.
Thank you for covering for me, Oh Great and Wonderful King of all Fishes! I had to go to the Doctor this morning. I had some skin bumps that worried me, since I had Squamous Cell Carcinoma some years back and have lost a good friend to that. Fortunately, the five or twelve bumps they froze away with a half gallon or so (seemed like that much to me) were just Old Fart bumps. However, the two female medical personnel asked me to get Naked (Nekked) so they could gaze upon my male body under the premise of looking for cancer places and I told them I only allowed my wife to see the nakedness of me. I think I hurt their feelings.
Let's see. the question was, why do we no longer cook this way? My response is it beats the heck out of me. Maybe a sign our society is going to quick box cake hell. What do you think Mr/Ms 8:52 am?
I'm 70 and remember reading The Parade magazine on Sundays. Pineapple upside down cake is one of my favorites so thank you, Chef ZeroBear Yum
I loved Parade when I was a kid. Personality Parade on the inside behind the first page; a different comedian every week had his best jokes printed on the third to last page. I don’t eat sugar anymore, though, knowingly, and feel a lot better for it.
Great cake. Love it. And glad it was just Old Fart bumps.
" I told them I only allowed my wife to see the nakedness of me. I think I hurt their feelings."
Next time, tell 'em they can look but you aren't on the market. But be careful. I told my wife that a sweet young gal was flirting with me. She said she'd sign title over to her for a below-market interest rate. I said that young gal couldn't afford me even at 0%. She said wasn't offering terms, she was asking for them. I just shut on up.
I truly hope that the younger folks reading this find the person who will say the very same thing to them because, a) you probably asked for it, and, b) neither of you would actually negotiate title for ANY interest rate. And you both are damned well certain of that.
What’s that red stuff?
@5:50 - The cherries. Read the recipe.
Kroger has a fine individual serving pineapple upside down cake in their freezer section. I may have to grab a box today.
7:11 I am very much a believer that not everything was better in the past. However, Kroger had only the very small bottles of maraschino cherries I show in my photo, when I purchased the ones I used in this cake and the actual cherries in those bottles were also very small. I guess I should have gone to Sams or Costco, where they probably sell much larger red cherries in half gallon jars. I have been known to eat maraschino cherries straight out of the jar. We don't keep them in the house though, so I probably need to confess I haven't done that in 30 years or more.
Your recipes are the best - I've made many and they are stellar. I, too, have a few Parade classics. I've never had this for some reason - may have to try it - but please keep bringing on the recipes!
Chef Zero Bear - I'm 7:11 and, yep, I've had trouble finding the big, plump cherries, too. I need to get some for my Thanksgiving ham decorations. I still haven't outgrown eating them from the bottle in the fridge.
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