ON THE PLATE: UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE DESERVES an outing

Seems it’s been quite a while since I’ve written about the pleasures of partaking in cake.

How remiss of me especially as I do confess to having a small piece of some sort of cake with my morning coffee! As they say, everything in moderation.

Here’s a new twist on a very old fashioned recipe. I’ve decided that upsidedown cakes deserve an outing.

An upside-down cake is basically a cake that is baked with the toppings – generally fruit – at the bottom of the cake tin, which once baked, is turned out and presented ‘upside down’.

Apples, berries, bananas can all be used in this manner and indeed some classic or ‘traditional’ upside down cakes include the American pineapple upside-down cake, the famous French Tarte Tatin and a Brazilian variety using bananas, Bolo de ananas.

Don’t you just love that name! Lately I’ve found myself routinely checking out the range of the not-quiteright fruit and vegetables on offer.

We’ve all been made much more aware of warring against waste on so many levels – and quite right too. As customers we can send a message by purchasing blemished, undersized, oversized or not quite the right ‘crescent’ shaped bananas – thus alerting supermarket giants to a niche market. I’m pleased to see that small inroads are being tread by the major supermarkets in their recent practice of bagging up ugly pears, or individual cloves of garlic and offering them at reduced prices. I needed some garlic the other day and was certainly not going to buy the imported whole heads of garlic on offer and was a trifle bothered until luckily, I spotted the loose, Australian grown cloves in small bags further along the shelf. Bingo– they’ll do me very nicely thank you.

I’m yet to try the Bolo de ananas cake which incorporates bananas, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, butter, brown sugar and vanilla to spice up the segments of banana baked in the bottom of the cake tin, underneath the cake batter. Sounds scrummy doesn’t it? For now I’ll share my version of a spiced pear upside-down cake that is delicious for morning or afternoon tea or coffee, or could equally be served warm with cream, ice cream, yoghurt or custard as a dessert for dinner. So, from the not quite right corner I purchased a bag of pears – a thrifty starting point for my upside-down cake adventure!