UPSIDE-DOWN PEAR CAKE

Why Should Pineapples have all the fun?! A yummy twist on a traditional classic.

My husband and I are trying to revive the "Sunday Dinner" vibe in our house. It's important to us that we give our girls that dependable sense of home and let's be honest, we just love to eat and going out to a nice meal with a family of 4 can be an expensive venture. so instead, we find a nice piece of meat on sale and do it up ourselves. He is making a beautiful Prime Rib roast and I am in charge of dessert. I wanted to make something different and my husband pointed out the hoard of pears we had in the crisper drawer of the fridge.

In all honesty I don't bake with pears very often, if at all. They have never been my favorite fruit, but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and try my hand at an upside down cake.

I used my pineapple upside-down cake recipe and it is completely interchangeable. I have personally never tried apples, but would love to in the future, I cannot imagine them being anything but delicious too!

Upside-down cakes are pretty simple. I think they are one of those recipes that look so delicious that it can seem intimidating, it's not. This recipe is as simple as it comes. Start by making a caramel sauce. Brown sugar and butter simmered together until slightly thickened. Pour it into the bottom of your baking dish. Any baking dish works here. Traditionally you can try to make the pears perfectly spiraled, but as you can see by my photos, I was NOT that fussy. Nobody in my house cares if it's pretty. just line the bottom with the sliced fruit in whatever pattern you like.

Mix up your simple white cake and pour it on top evenly. Bake for an hour or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. The cake will be golden on the top, not that it matters, you won't be seeing it anyway!

Let the cake cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes, but don't let it cool completely before flipping it upside down or you run the risk of the sugars sticking and ruining your cake. The cake itself will be very moist when it first comes out of the oven, be careful when flipping it or you'll ruin the top effect.