Pineapple Upside-Down Cake w/ Ginger Ice Cream

This recipe I stumbled upon one day when I decided to make dinner with my roommate. Although most of the dinner was Asian-inspired after tasting this cake - I knew it would be something my family would enjoy.

So I thought I'd share it with you.

It's inspired by a recipe on Simply Recipes - however, I've changed the caramel topping a bit - and also changed some ingredients within the cake recipe as well.

Ingredients:

Caramel Topping-

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup of molasses
• 1 can (20 oz) of pineapple slices.

Cake:

• 1 & 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 6 Tbsp cornmeal
• 6 Tbsp of ground almonds (from about 2 oz of whole almonds)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 & 3/4 cups of sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Directions:

1. Start by making the caramel topping: Take sugar and butter and combine and melt in a saucepan on medium heat until sugar dissolves. Stir in the molasses and wait until the mixture is bubbly, this should take several minutes.  Pour mixture into a 10 inch diameter stick-free cake pan with 2 inch high sides. Arrange pineapple slices in a single layer ontop of the caramel mixture. About 7 slices fit.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Whisk the flour, corn meal, almonds, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the sugar and butter together until light. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream in 2 additions each, beating well after each addition. Pour cake batter over caramel and pineapple in pan.
3. Bake cake until tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Turn cake out onto a platter. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 12 to 14 servings. Serve with ginger ice cream - I'm recommending Haagen Daaz.

Desserts: Payesh (Rice Pudding)

So a week or so ago, on my way to interview someone about my master's project, I decided to go grab a Bahn Mi, or a Vietnamese sandwich at Baoguette in Manhattan. When I got to small shop off Lexington Avenue, I was impressed with the small but delicious menu. 

I decided on a Sloppy Bao - spicy curry pork, green mango, cilantro and lemongrass. It's placed on a french baguette - and there was awesome Asian flavor in every bite.

So I'm thinking that this weekend - I will try to experiment with this and create two Indian sandwiches. I'm thinking one with ground lamb and one with pulled chicken... or if I'm really good another vegetarian version.

I'll definitely place the recipes up once I'm done with the experiment.

On a completely different note - I was really craving Indian sweets - which rarely happens - so I thought I'd talk about one of my favorites - rice pudding, or as known in my family - payesh. There are various versions of payesh depending on which part of India a family is from - however one thing is for sure, it's a simple and sweet dessert that is easy to make.

It's also a really easy way to get rid of bad milk. Literally, in my house we knew someone was gonna make payesh when the power went out and the milk went sour. The boiling of the milk removes any bacteria.

Bengali Payesh
serves 4, Soak: 1 hr., Prep: 5 min., Cook: 40 min.

Ingredients:

• 1 liter (about 4 1/4 cups) whole or skim milk (depending on how creamy you want it)
• 1/2 cup basmati rice (soaked for at least one hour)
• 10-12 cashew nuts, chopped
• slivered almonds, 1/4 cup
• 1/4 cup of sugar, or of jaggery**
• 1/4 cups of raisins
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 green cardamoms

** jaggery is a unrefined sugar usual found in block form in Asian grocery stores. It almost looks like dark brown sugar.

Directions: 

1. Bring the milk to a boil in a pan. Add the bay leaves and green cardamoms and let boil further for 8-10 minutes on medium heat. When 3/4 of the milk remains, add the soaked rice, sugar, cashew nuts, almonds and raisins.
2. Reduce heat to low and simmer until only half of the milk remains in the pan and the rice is tender. Keep stirring from time to time throughout the process.
3. Allow to cool.  Cover and refrigerate.