That this delicious and way to make dessert dates back hundreds of years. Typically people cooked on cast-iron skillets over open fires. To create something sweet, they would line the bottom of the skillets with fruits and then pour the batter onto this. Once cooked, they would flip the pan over. This cake had a delicious and beautiful caramelized fruit top. No decoration needed.
In the early 1900s James Dole (founder of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, now known as Dole) enabled pineapples to travel much further by figuring our a new way to package them, he created a way to can them. Pineapple were them available throughout the US. There is no register of when or whom finally put it into an upside down cake, but we are very thankful they did.
Spider cakes
Early Americans used cast-iron skillets with legs on the bottom to make these cakes. The skillets were called, “spiders,” and this gave birth to the so called “spider cakes.” Then ovens were created and the legs of these spider skillets were cut off becoming the flat-bottomed cast-iron skillets (the same as what we use today) and this, a new way to bake cakes. These skillets, without legs, were used to make the same “spider cakes,” but now, in an oven.
The Story Behind New England Spider Cake: The Sweet, Quirky Cornbread with a Surprise Inside
“… the cake, like many other cornbread cousins, was traditionally cooked in a cast iron vessel known as a spider. As the Stavelys explain, “A ‘Spider’ is an eighteenth-century name for a skillet that had three long legs so it could sit above the coals of a hearth fire.”
We cannot go through this day with our recommending a wonderful recipe for Pineapple Upside Down Cake to make at home. Alto Hartley does a wonderful job telling the story and sharing a delicious recipe for the Food Network. Lets start by making sure you have the ingredients. There’s still time to run to the 24 hour grocery store!
Ingredients
1 12-ounce package of frozen cherries, thawed
3/4 cup spiced rum (we’re fans of good old Captain Morgan, but if you really want a tropical twist, try a coconut rum)
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
5 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 pint creme fraiche
1 lime, zested
1 orange, zested
