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Click Here for the Original Hawaiian Pineapple Co. Contest Winning Recipe from 1925

UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

The term 'upside down cake' wasn't used very much before the middle of the 19th century, but the style of baking probably dates back much further, probably to the Middle Ages. 

The early recipes for fruit upside down cakes were made in cast iron skillets on top of the stove.  The classic American 'Pineapple Upside Down Cake' dates to sometime after 1903, when Jim Dole invented canned pineapple. 

The Hawaiian Pineapple Co. (now Dole Pineapple) held a pineapple recipe contest in 1925, judges from Fannie Farmer's School, Good Housekeeping and McCall's magazine on the judging panel. The 100 winning recipes would be published in a cookbook the following year.

Over 60,000 recipes were sent in, and 2,500 of them were for Pineapple Upside Down Cake. So it is obvious that between 1903 when canned pineapple was first available, and 1925 when the contest was held, Pineapple Upside Down Cake had become a very popular item.

The Hawaiian Pineapple Company ran an ad campaign in 1926 based on the fact that so many recipes for the cake had been submitted, naturally making the Pineapple Upside Down Cake even more popular. Winning Recipe