Pineapple almond upside-down cake

 I'm normally a huge fan of pineapple (my mother always soaked fresh pineapple in brine "to get the dirt out" before serving it to us as children, which I absolutely hated and left me with a lifelong wariness of the fruit), but I confess I do have a soft spot for sweet, sticky, caramel classic - pineapple upside down cake.

Here's an adaption of a great recipe that I tested out from the BBC Good Food Cookbook which gives you a simple soft sponge cake topped with crunchy caramel, sweet-tart pineapple, and nutty roasted almonds. I've adjusted the recipe to fit a 8"/20cm square pan, but if you want to make a slightly larger, taller, cake , simply double and bake in a 22cm square or 20cm round baking pan.

I also got rid of the maraschino/glacé cherries as a topping, as I've always been slightly grossed out by their glaringly gaudy artificial redness and their cloying sweetness. But of course, each to his/her own, so feel free to add them if you like. Just don't tell me. :)

Shortbread/butter cookies

Recipe adapted from several that I found online.

Ingredients:

A:
170g butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

B:
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt

Method:

1. Measure out A in a bowl, cream together until combined.
   
2. Measure and sift together B.
3. Add B to A and mix until combined. Shape into a ball (don't overmix or the butter will melt and go all gross and greasy) and place in a generous square of clingfilm. Loosely fold over with clingfilm and then flatten the ball into a disk.
   
4. Freeze for 30 minutes (freezing it helps solidify the butter so that the cookie will keep its shape when baked).
   
5. Preheat oven to 180 C.
   
6. Take dough out of freezer; unwrap. Roll out so that it's about 1/2 inch thick or so. Cut out with cookie cutters or cut using knife into desired shape.
   
7. Place on ungreased baking sheet.
8. If your dough got soft and warm, it's better to chill the raw cookies in the fridge again if possible for a bit so that the cookies retain their shape when baked. Unfortunately my fridge wasn't bit enough so some of the later cookies lost their shape a bit. (My oven is also only 1/4 size of a conventional home oven so I had to do two batches.)
9. Bake for about 20 minutes or until edges of cookies start to go golden brown.
   
10. Take out and let cool on baking sheet. Remove and store in airtight container.