Page 244 of Big Green Egg Cookbook
| Difficulty |
B |
Easy prep, but with two grilling temperatures and grill configurations. |
| Taste |
C |
It tasted like bacon |
| Was it worth it? |
No |
Maybe with fresh coals this would be better, but I’m not going to try this recipe again until I try some others first. |
After our first attempt on the Egg came out so well, we decided to be adventurous and try something a bit more difficult. Who bakes a cake on a grill? We do.
First we gathered all of our ingredients. I was surprised by how few we actually needed. Most of the ingredients were things we already had around the house. The recipe called for fresh pineapple, but we decided to skip the mess and use the can of sliced we already had. The only thing we needed to run to the store for was the condensed milk and cherries.
Baker Susie prepares the ingredients
Before we started on the cake we needed to prepare the pineapple. You first need to mix together the condensed milk and brown sugar. This created a syrupy bath that the pineapple slices needed to be “dredged” in. You actually use very VERY little of this mix. For future cakes I would only use half of what the recipe calls for, as you throw away almost all of it.
bathing the pineapple slices
Once the pineapple slices all had their milk bathes it was time to grill them up. Two minutes on each side over 325 degree direct heat gave most of the slices nice sear marks and a crispy almost candy like coating.
grilling the pineapple
We tried one slice fresh from the grill and it was delicious! It was sweet, but with a smoky grilled taste. I believe the pineapple off the grill would have been outstanding even without the milk brown sugar bath, but it definitely added some flavor.
pineapple coming off the grill
It also made a mess of the grill grid. However, I was pleasantly surprised but how easily it cleaned up. Just a little brushing and the grid was completely clean.
nice clean grid
At this point we removed the grid and set-up the Egg for indirect cooking with the plate setter. It took me a few minutes and a few glances at the instruction book to get the plate setter in correctly, but once I figured it out it was quite simple.
this takes skills
I got the Egg heated back up to 325 degrees while our Baker was preparing the batter. Separating the eggs from their yolks proved to be the most difficult part, but other than that the cake was easy. Simply mix together the rest of the ingredients and pour over the arranged grilled pineapple slices and cherries in the bottom of the cake pan.
cake pan ready for batter
in goes the batter
We put the cake on the grill to bake for 30 to 35 minutes.
time to bake
About 20 minutes after we put the cake on I smelled something burning. I didn’t want to open the grill and let the heat escape, but I did want to see what was making that smell. I was able to remove the top of the Egg and look down into it using a flashlight. The cake had overflowed the pan on one side and the batter on the plate setter was burning and giving off that wicked smell. Luckily enough the cake still looked okay.
We cooked it for about ten more minutes. By this time the burn smell had gone away and you could smell the cake. It smelled wonderful. We took it off the grill and brought it inside to cool.
cake coming off the grill
After it had cooled we removed the cake from the pan and it looked perfect. It was soft and moist and smelled delicious.
cake!
We let it cool a bit longer then everyone dived in. My friend Rob was the first to taste it. “How is it?” I asked. “Well…it’s…weird. It smells good and it’s moist…but it has the distinct flavor of….animal fat” he replied. I had to try it myself…and he was right. It tasted like bacon! After several tastes and discussions it was unanimous, we had made Pineapple Bacon Upside-Down Cake.
bacon cake 
Now I don’t know if this is because I didn’t change the coals from our last grill session, or if that’s just how grilled cakes come out, but that’s how it was. The cake batter itself was great, so the bacon taste most likely came from the grill. I’m willing to bet that if the cake had been baked in the oven it would have been awesome.
I think we’ll try this again, but with fresh coals and do an update. I’ll keep you posted. 
