One Egg Cake and Upside Down Cake

I will admit that my recipe search had a purpose this time; I wanted to find something easy.  I mean really easy.  Something I could "whip up".  I wanted to make something that was a "no brainer".  Usually the cakes, cookies or dessert sections are a good place for finding just this type of recipe.  This recipe is another one of those that is "just so fitting".  It contains options...you can make it an upside down cake, or you don't have to, you can use different kinds of fruit, they could be fresh or canned...it's up to you what you decide. With out the fruit it is "one egg cake", but I can't imagine this recipe really being any good right side up (i.e.: no fruit).  I can guarantee my grandma has made this cake.  It’s easy and it is written for pineapple and my Grandma LOVED pineapple.  I'm going to digress for a minute.... I remember some of the games we would play at my grandma and grandpa's house.  There were two that were quite popular among us.  Now keep in mind, our games weren't the kinds of games that were on a computer, or from a board, we played games, made up by us, with what ever we had. One game we played was "post office"; I'll have to explain more about that some other day.  The other game we played was "grocery store" (combined with "house"...surely some of you remember playing "house").  (Here comes the tie in to all of this).  My Grandma and Grandpa had a "pantry".  By many of today's standards, it was nothing more than a cupboard full of canned goods and Jell-O boxes. But if you are a couple of kids looking for something to do at Grandma's, this is a "gold mine".  You can set up a store and have all kinds of fun.  You can occupy hours upon hours, first you have to set up the store, then you have to decide who is who, who works in the store, who shops at the store, so many things to do in a grocery store. After all, we knew an awful lot about the grocery store. In our small town, it was "Bud's" grocery store.  We could ride our bikes down the street; pick up a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk (we called it a gallon but today I now know it was really a 1/2 gallon), put them in the basket on the handlebars of our bike and ride home.  No money involved.  Bud knew who's kids we were and he would just put it on my mom's bill.   At our "store" at my Grandma’s we would buy and sell groceries, we would stock, reorganize, oh so much to do.  Grandpa was always good for a real purchase, quarters would change hands, we would get to keep them, and the groceries really did disappear from our inventory.  Now here's the rest of the tie...we could sell pineapple till the cows come home.  Diced, chunked, rings, crushed, big cans, small cans, in juice, heavy syrup...you name it...we had every kind of pineapple known to man (except fresh...a little hard to find in Nebraska).

One Egg Cake and Upside Down Cake

2/3 C. sugar                      1 egg

1/4 C. shortening              1 1/2 C. flour

1/4 tsp salt                       1/2 C. milk

1 tsp vanilla                      2 tsp B. Powder

For Upside down - use 2 tbsp butter.

Place in bottom 2 tbsp melted butter, 1/2 c. brown sugar.

Pineapple for fruit.  (I used canned peaches…most anything could work). 

Couple of things about this recipe...I used an 8x8 glass baking dish and baked this at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes...(notice no directions), I took it out, turned it out of the pan, it wasn't done, so I literally put it back in the pan and baked it some more, about another 20 minutes.  Bubba liked this recipe...he gave it a 9.  I think this is the all time high and I would say that for once the rating matched the consumption.