Ted Wilson Reviews the World: A Pineapple Upside Down Cake

★★★★☆ (4 out of 5)

Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of the world. Today I am reviewing a pineapple upside down cake.

At my age I know I don’t have much time left, so I try to live each day as if it were my last. Just kidding, I don’t really do that because I don’t want to get arrested and spend my last day alive in jail. Instead, I just try to do all the things I’ve always wanted to do. And when I can’t do those, I’m happy to do things I don’t want to do, because at this late stage in life beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll take what I can get and make the most of it. And when I can’t make the most of it, I’ll make something of it, even if that something isn’t much of anything.

That’s why recently, when I found a pineapple in the back seat of my car, I decided to make a pineapple upside down cake out of it. At the library I found a recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook. I’d heard of Betty Crocker before, so I figured it should be good enough.

Now the name of the cake is a bit misleading. Yes there’s pineapple, but the cake is definitely NOT upside down. It’s not even sideways. I had hoped for some type of gravity-defying baked good. It’s only upside down if you turn it upside down, but that’s true of any cake. What a disappointment.

What is not disappointing, however, is the flavor. It tastes like a pineapple but even better! Like a super pineapple. Imagine a pineapple that when plucked fresh came covered in a sugary glaze and had a layer of buttercream frosting. The recipe didn’t actually call for buttercream frosting, but what kind of a cake doesn’t have frosting?

I hope eventually fruits may evolve to grow with frosting on them. If Monsanto can make that happen, I think they could really turn the tide of bad press they’ve been receiving.

I’m not exactly sure where my recipe went wrong, or if it was Betty Crocker’s fault, but my cake turned out less like a pineapple upside down cake and more like a pineapple inside out cake. Maybe I should have put the frosting on at the end rather than mixing it in with the batter, or maybe I should have used a recipe from Dole. I’ll never know.

(I had wanted to include the recipe here for you to try, but my lawyer recommended against it due to the risk of a lawsuit for copyright infringement.)

In terms of flavor I was satisfied, but what really made this cake exceptional was the sheer volume of it. I had enough for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still have some left over to feed to the squirrels. They didn’t seem interested though, so I put it in a box and dropped it off at the Salvation Army.

BEST FEATURE: It’s a great way to get rid of a pineapple.
WORST FEATURE: The pineapple can hurt your hands a lot when you’re peeling the skin off, but it will make your hands tougher once the scabs heal.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing Tom Hanks.