My First Blog Event - Eat to the Beat!

As I've ventured into the world of food blogs, I learned about blog events. It's sort of like my country challange, but it's an event for many people to be a part of. I love Elly of Elly Says Opa!, her blog is great and her food is photographed so well, it's mouthwatering! I knew I wanted this to be my first event because 1. it's Elly's, and 2. it's about music and food!

The event is Eat to the Beat, and Elly's instructions were to create a dish in honor of a song. I knew right away what I had to make, because I've been wanting to make it for so long - Pineapple Upside Down Cake! My absolute favorite movie is 50 First Dates. The movie is wonderful, but the soundtrack is AMAZING! I love every song on it. The movie takes place in Hawaii, so all of the music has an islandy feel. There are a mixture of old songs, new songs, remakes of old songs, and a song from the movie. Listening to the music in the dead of winter keeps me hopeful that it will warm up someday!

Thanks, Elly for creating this wonderful event!

As I've become more comfortable baking in the kitchen, I've been healthy-editing existing recipes from foodnetwork. It's a tricky thing to do with baking, but I decided to make my own recpe for this cake! As I've been trying to with most things lately, I made a lighter cake. By no means will I say this is healthy because there is a bit of sugar, but there isn't much fat. The end result was pretty good. JJ said he missed the gooey, buttery topping in the pineapple, but overall it was a decent cake.

Lightened-Up Pineapple Upside Down Cake

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup applesauce

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup skim milk

2 tbsp. spiced rum

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

7 slices fresh pineapple

21 marischino cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 10 in. cake pan with nonstick spray. Lay pineapples in the pan, 3 cherries in each center, and sprinkle with the brown sugar.

In a stading mixer, combine sugar, applesauce, and eggs. Beat for 2 minutes. Add cinnamon, salt, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup flour. Mix for 20 seconds. Add 1/4 cup skim milk, mix for 10 seconds, add 1/2 cup flour, mix, add the rest of the milk, mix, add the wheat flour, mix, add the rum, and mix. Use a spatula to scrape down sides and combine anything stuck to the bottom. Be careful to not overmix. Spread on top of the pineapple mixture, and bake for 40 minutes.

Let cake sit 10 minutes, then invert onto a cake pedistal. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Note - The wheat flour leaves this cake a bit gummy, so all white flour can be used, the wheat flour is just to make it a bit healthier.