Upside down Inside out pineapple cake

One of my friends has been requesting a pineapple upside down cake for a while now so I decided to go retro and make it for him.
I'm not usually a big fan of fruit in cakes, I quite like the simple sugariness of icing and cake, but I was actually really surprised at how much I enjoyed this cake. That honestly could be something to do with the fact that it had a copious amount of butter in it!
I wasn't quite sure if the cake was going to be too loose because of the syrup from the pineapples seeping into the cake but it was still cooked thoroughly and moist at the same time. I left out the glace´ cherries (sacrilege I know) but I'm really not a big fan of them and it was still sweet enough without them.
Thankfully the cake was received well by my friend and he even exclaimed that it tasted like the one his mum made! I cant think of a better compliment!

I used a recipe from a Good Housekeeping book  (this isn't the same one we have but its the newest one) we have had at home for years and it stood the test of time. I will definitely be making this cake again and maybe experimenting with other fruits - I've seen a brilliant pear and cranberry upside down cake by Ottolenghi I'd like to make.

Apologies for the lack of photos but as this was for a friend I couldn't really set up a photo shoot before hand!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake
(adapted from the Good Housekeeping Book)

Ingredients
50g butter
50 dark brown sugar
Tinned or fresh pineapple (keep the syrup/juice)
100g butter
100g self raising flour
100g caster sugar
1tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 egg

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 150C. In a bowl mix together the 50g of butter and 50g dark brown sugar until fluffy and combined well. Line a 20cm cake pan with this mix and place the pineapple rings on top.
2. In another bowl cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Then add the flour, baking powder and vanilla essence and mix well, using some of the pineapple syrup to loosen the mixture (about 2 tablespoons).
4. Pour the batter on top of the pineapple slices and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes. I had to cover mine with foil for half of the baking time as because the sugar content is so high it has a natural tendency to burn.
5. Once cooked leave to cool for a bit before turning out for serving.