Pineapple Upside-Down Cupcakes!

       Once upon a time, there was me in my kitchen at school, wanting to recreate something I saw on the internet: mini versions of pineapple upside down cake! I was equipped with a box of cake and a few other random ingredients, and this Betty Crocker Super Moist looked pretty delicious, which was all perfect because I was craving some delicious fluff after going to see The Vagina Monologues. I was ready to attempt a pinterest-inspired version of mini pineapple upside down cake! Because the only thing better than food is MINI-FOOD! Right?

Whoa, dude, you're using strawberry cake for this pineapple dessert? YES

       The box of cake only called for a cup of water, half a cup of vegetable oil, and a few stupid eggs. Make sure you actually have eggs, because I had to go ALL THE WAY to the market to get them and then they didn't have those nice little packages of six eggs so I had to get twelve eggs and now they're just sitting here. Maybe I can cook the rest of them up with some bacon! Oh wait we ate the bacon. Ehh.

DAT PINK AND BLUE. DAT CONTRAST

       At least the cake mix is beautifully vibrant! I couldn't stop tasting it only because it was faaaahbulously pink. And I have this bacon in the picture because I almost cooked bacon into some of the cakes, except again, we ate the bacon.

       I wasn't sure how well bacon would go with the pineapple flavor, anyway, since I had poured some of the pineapple juice into the cake batter. I continued to get out my muffin tin, a tiny one because I live in a dorm and have a toaster oven! Shh, I'm not really supposed to have a toaster oven. Anyway, I lined the tin with some butter, created these pretty little flowers out of some pineapple chunks, and cinnamon-sugared them. I saw this done on pinterest with pineapple rings instead, but that's okay, not everyone's food is as pretty as mine. But actually though, rings might give your cakes more leverage when it comes to getting them out of the pan; I would try it out!

EAT YO FRUIT

       I proceeded to coat the pineapple in cake mix to prepare for baking. I filled them up about 3/4 of the way full. I would usually only fill them halfway because cake rises so much, but think about it, pineapple doesn't expand or rise.

       Lo and behold, they rose just the perfect amount! Getting them out was easy since the pineapple juice lubricates the pan, AND the chunky fruit is baked into the cake so it all comes out in one nice little package!

Don't they look like plain strawberry cupcakes? Haha, joke on you

       I'm glad they were so easy to take out and didn't fall apart! I had to wait for them to cool off completely, though, so everything could solidify together. Look how pretty they turned out! They look like cute little individual tiki festivities! It's like I want to serve them on an island inside a coconut.

I ended up taking the cakes over to my friend Lauren's, (SHOUTOUT! GO LAUREN! SHE GOT ME INTO PINTEREST!) and my old high school friends and I devoured them like true inebriates. Because of all the sugar we had been eating, of course.

Let's have a Tiki Kiki!!!

       Stay tuned for more baking adventures with the College Kitchenettes!

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