This is a recipe that I got from a friend at least 25 years ago. It is truly a retro cake! We usually make it at Christmas time but it is a cake for every season since it doesn’t have any particular Christmas spices such as ginger, cinnamon, cardamom or cloves.
prep time 15 min cook time 35 min
ingredients
for the topping
- 7 pineapple rings in syrup, drained and syrup reserved
- 50 g sugar
- 50 g butter, melted
- 7 glacé cherries
- handful of almonds, finely chopped
for the cake
- 100 g butter, melted
- 100 g sugar
- 200 g flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon baking powder (1 bustina lievito Bertolini)
- 50 g sambuca
- 50 g pineapple syrup
1. Preheat the oven to 170-180C
2. For the topping, beat 50g melted butter and 50g sugar together until creamy. Spread over the base and a quarter of the way up the sides of a 22cm round cake tin. Arrange 7 pineapple rings on top (reserving the syrup for later), then fill in the spaces with finely chopped almonds. Place the glacé cherries in the centres of the rings.
3. Using an electric whisk beat sugar and eggs until light and creamy. Add flour with the baking powder mixed in, then sambuca, pineapple juice and finally the melted butter. Mix gently with a spatula.
4. Pour the batter over the fruit and smooth it out with a spatula so it’s level.
5. Bake for 30-35 min until a toothpick or a cake tester comes out clean.
6. Let cool for 10 min. Invert a serving plate over the cake pan and, using kitchen towels or oven mitts to grasp onto both the plate and the cake pan, flip both the pan and the plate over so the pan now sits on top of the plate. Slowly lift the cake pan away.
7. Serve the cake warm or cool with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
8. Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
BUON APPETITO!