Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

The new season of Big Bang Theory premiered last night. Who watched it? Not me. I was so busy hemming pants and baking cupcakes for a friend's birthday that I forgot about my favorite show. How in the world could I forget about Mr. Bazinga himself, Sheldon Cooper and his friends? Did Howard make it back from space? Are Penny & Leonard still together?

I tend to forget important things. Like that time I forgot about a church potluck until late the night before and had to whip up a dish with what I had on hand. There was no butter, but I found a yellow cake mix. What resulted was an easy, semi-homemade cupcake that presented well: Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes.

My normal recipe for the cupcakes involves a butter cake from scratch, but these were so good, I couldn't tell a difference. The secret is substituting pineapple juice for the water called for on the box.

For the pineapple on the bottom, I just cut a small wedge out of each slice until they were small enough to fit in the bottom of a muffin pan. After I ran out of whole slices of pineapple, I fit together the leftover wedges to make more pineapple rings in the bottom of the pan.

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcake Recipe

Yields approximately 18 cupcakes

Ingredients
Yellow cake mix (+eggs/oil called for on box)
20 oz. can of pineapple slices in 100% juice (reserve juice)
2/3 cup brown sugar
Maraschino Cherries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350*F. Prepare muffin pan with cooking spray. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of brown sugar into each cup in the pan. Cut a section out of the pineapple until it's small enough to fit inside of the muffin cup. Quarter a few of the maraschino cherries and place one piece in the middle of each pineapple piece in the muffin cup. Set aside.



Prepare cake mix with eggs and oil as called for on the box. Substitute leftover pineapple juice for the water in the mix. (If you don't have enough pineapple juice, just add water to the juice until it reaches the proper measurement.)

Cover the pineapple and cherry with cake batter until each muffin cup is 2/3 full. Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Allow the muffin pan to cool for a minute. Run a knife around the edge of each muffin cup, loosening the edges of the cupcake. Flip the pan over onto a cooling rack to release the cupcakes from the muffin tin.

Place each upside down cupcake into a muffin liner to serve. Enjoy while warm!