Pineapple Amaretto Upside Down Cake

Oh yes, our love for Amaretto continues. This cake is filled with a marinade of Amaretto pineapple, combined with coconut, cherries, walnuts, with a brown sugar glazed homemade cake from scratch! Banana's with drizzled hot fudge was for presentation, but actually complimented this dessert with a dollop of whipped cream.

While still warm you will want to flip this onto a deep cookie sheet lined with wax paper to catch the glazing that will spill over. You can use any nuts you have on hand, pecans, walnuts, almonds, pistachio,macadamia all work wonderful and have tried this with all of them.

Batter is thick and spread over buttery pineapple and coconut, cherry topping that has been placed first into the pan. No greasing necessary, make sure you cover the top all the way around with batter.

After the butter melts, add the pineapple, cherries, brown sugar, coconut, mixed together and sprinkle nuts evenly with cherries for even placement.

I had a fresh pineapple waiting to be cut up and used, so this recipe that mom would make time and time again but using canned pineapple, ended up in this cake. I was not surprised how much better this was with fresh, but not always in season everywhere, so canned it fine. Melting the butter in the pan, just put a stick of butter in the pan, stick this in the oven when it is preheating while you get everything else measured out. Make sure you watch that it doesn't burn.



I make two and double this recipe in 8x8x2 square pans.



1 cup of fresh pineapple chunks reserve 1 tablespoon of natural juice or 1 8oz can of pineapple chunks, drained reserving 1 tablespoon of juice

4 tablespoons of butter melted

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup Amaretto

1/4 cup whole maraschino cherries

1/4 cup nuts suggestions, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, macadamia, hazelnuts

1/3 cup shortening

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Place drained chunk pineapple in bowl reserving 1 tablespoon of juice, add Amaretto, leave overnight or at least two hours in refrigerator.

In a 8x8 baking pan melt butter in 350 degree oven.



Add brown sugar, and butter. Save 1/2 cup of the Amaretto from the soaked pineapple for batter. Remove and arrange pineapple from saved juice, add cherries, nuts and coconut on the bottom of the pan with brown sugar and butter mixture and mix together..



In a large bowl mix together shortening, sugar till light. Beat in egg, and vanilla. Add flour,baking powder an salt and alternating with reserved 1/2 cup of Amaretto and juice till well blended. Spread over top of mixture. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes till brown and done in middle. Cool one minute, invert on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper to cool. Top with whipped cream, garnish with chocolate drizzled sliced banana's or ice cream.