I've been making this basic recipe for years with a couple differences: I used a yellow cake mix with the juice from the pineapple in place of the water (add water to the juice if necessary). I've used pineapple tidbits and rings cut up to fit instead of the crushed pineapple. Crushed pineapple can sometimes make the cake under it too mushy sometimes. Instead of putting the batter directly into the muffin pan, I used paper liners which is so much easier for lunches and serving at picnics. It's a surprise when they take the paper off to eat it! It's basically sweet enough for me to eat like this but occasionaly I've dusted powdered sugar on top of the cupcakes after slightly cooled. Oh, and if you're a coconut lover, add a little to the brown sugar before laying in the pineapple and cherries. This is a great recipe anyway you make it!
Loved these! Of course baking from scratch is always nice, but this is a great way to make a yummy finger food snack without the extra work. To me adding the pineapple juice to the Duncan Hines cake mix gave it a real extra flavor boost (thanks for the tip!) I don't understand people who rate recipes down for using a mix aid, IF YOU DON'T LIKE MIX THEN DON'T MAKE THE RECIPE.
I made these this morning and they turned out great. Some people were saying to use pineapple tidbits so to see which would be better I made half with crushed and half with tidbits. The crushed looked and tasted better by leaps and bounds. Otherwise I made them per the recipe with no alterations of substitutions, which is not like me. Here is my advice - Use parchment paper not wax, they stick worse to wax. Move them to a cool place in the kitchen both before and after inverting them, they easily get "sticky" on the bottom (cake side). I found that 20 minutes was not enough so I went about 24 to get them done. I also found it was a pain trying to push down the pineapple while keeping the cherry in the middle and covering the bottom completely. Put the pineapple down and then push the cherry through and down to the bottom to make this a ton easier.
love these lil guys! its def more effort to do so many individual cakes but as far as presentation they're well worth it, make a cute idea for partys!!
I don't know why I never thought to make little individual cakes like this before! I made my own cake from scratch but followed this recipe for the instructions with glaze, assembly, and cooking time. Delicious! Each little cupcake had just the right amount of caramel glaze and the little tidbits of pineapple were so much easier to eat than the big rings in the traditional recipe. This one is a keeper! The kids had so much fun helping with this too. (I discovered after that the kids used 1 T. of melted butter in each muffin cup not 1 t. maybe that's why it was so good. :o)
I am a scatch baker as well, but we all need a short cut now and then. Made these for Easter today, along with a turkey, ham, ETC. Made 3 desserts and this one came out of the oven just in time to be served warm! Can you say Yummy!!! And pretty :) Thank you. Update: had so many requests for this again, did it today for Easter. Used a yellow cake mix (all I had) and a real pineapple that I had that was over ripe. Awesome!! Cleaned pineapple, put slices in a gallon Ziploc and squeezed them into mush. Put in a mesh strainer and pressed the juice out as much as possible, ended up with well over 2 cups. Used juice and pineapple as instructed. Came out perfect!! 13 ppl for Dinner 0 cakes left!
Oh these came out wonderfully. I used my larger muffin pans to make single serving cakes so there was more pineapple at the top of the cakes. I would recommend this recipe to all.
This was very easy and very moist and delicious.We don't like the cherries, so I did not use those and I used about 1 1/2 tsp of butter in each dish and a heaping Tbsp of Dark Brown Sugar in each. I also used Pineapple Tidbits instead of crushed pineapple. I only had just over 1 cup of pineapple juice, so I added 1/3 cup of water. Definitely a must make if you like Pineapple Upside Down Cake.
My party starts in an hour. Made a practice batch last weekend and I ate them all... so I am not worried :)
I actually made these the other day my kids said it tatses better when i make a homemade batter than with the duncan pineapple supreme.
