I don't like you, pineapple upside-down cake

So I've been reading and laughing my way through Amy Sedaris' hosting book, I Like You.  I bought it mainly for the comedy, but as I'm leafing through it I start to realize that the recipes in there actually sound good.  And lo, Easter is coming, my mother and I have been missing pineapple upside-down cake, and there is a recipe for it in Sedaris' book.  Last year I hosted Easter and had no time for dessert.  My mom tried to find a pre-made p.u-d.c. at the grocery store to no avail.  So I decide to try Sedaris' version.

Now, nobody who bakes is going to tell you this is a hard cake to make.  I've made it before and it takes little time.  It all sounds well and good, except...the recipe says to mix the pineapple juice in with the butter & brown sugar that goes on the bottom of the cake pan.  Well let me be clear here...here's what it says:

• Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in the bottom of an 8- or 9-inch cake pan or an ovenproof skillet.  Stir in the brown sugar and stir until it dissolves.  Take off burner and add your pineapple juice. 

I did this, and I had a pool of pineapple juice sitting on top of my brown sugar/butter mix.  To that I was supposed to add the pineapple rings and then the cake batter.  And I said, "That can't be right."  Who leaves a pool of liquid sitting unmixed in a cake pan?  So I scrapped the whole mess out of the pan, mixed it up on the burner and re-poured.  Now I had a sort of slurry sitting on the bottom of my cake pan, but I forged ahead with the rest of the recipe.  I knew it was too soupy, but I said, hey, maybe the drug-addled comedienne knows better than me about this cake.  After all, I haven't made this in about 10 years.

Here's what fell out of my cake pan 45 minutes later:

Those fucking cherries and rings were arranged in a meticulously PERFECT pattern.  I wasn't crazy, there was too much goo on the top of my cake, and it came out like a soggy sponge.  Also, my cake pan must not have been big enough because when the cake rose so did the evil brown pineapple slurry...it bubbled right out of the pan and onto the bottom of my oven.  NEVER MIND that I neglected to put a protective cookie sheet under my cake pan, something my mom taught me to do 20 years ago.  You just keep that comment to yourself, missy.  All I know is that when I put the oven on last night it smoked for 45 minutes.  I had to scrape that sugary crap off of the bottom with a spatula, and the oven still smoked for another 30 minutes afterward just to remind me why I quit baking years ago.

But Amy, I still like you, even if you practically came over in the flesh and ruined my morning by baking a bad cake and leaving me to clean up the mess.  So I'm going to try this again, and I will substitute some of the liquid in the cake batter for the pineapple juice.  It's going to be fabulous.