Dutch Oven Pineapple Upside Down Cake

There’s nothing quite like baking a pineapple upside down cake in a dutch oven. It’s easier than you think!

Preheat the dutch oven until a hand held inside gets uncomfortably warm in five seconds.

While the oven is heating mix a box of white or yellow cake mix according to the instructions on the box.

Spread margarine around the whole inside of the oven. Melt about 1/3 of a cup of margarine in the bottom of the oven, add about 2/3 cup of brown sugar and mix well. Open and drain a can of pineapple rings, place them on the bottom of the oven.

Place a maraschino cherry in the center of each one.

Carefully pour the cake mix over the pineapple and cherries. Put plenty of coals underneath and on top of the oven.

Check after fifteen minutes – if the cake dry around the edges the oven is too hot, if the cake hasn’t changed in appearance at all the oven is too cold.

Check every fifteen or twenty minutes and adjust heat by adding or taking away coals. The cake is done when a clean splinter of wood poked into the center of the cake comes out clean.If you use too much heat you’ll burn the sugar and the outside of the cake while the inside stays doughy. If you use too little heat it won’t quite cook through.

I have had both happen but we still managed to eat the results.

Remove the coals from the top of the oven. Run a knife around the edge of the cake to make sure it is loose.

Replace the lid and flip the whole thing over – if you have lived a clean life the cake will fall right into the lid for serving to thunderous applause. The finished product. Good eating.