Pineapple Pecan Cake

The ISFA work continues — another kitchen table this week, another young family with numbers that might work. I sat across from a couple in Hardin County and laid out the grants and watched their faces change from fear to possibility, and the change is the thing I live for now.

The recipe this week: apple crisp. Standing at the stove, Marlene's wooden spoon in my hand (the cracked one, the one that will outlast us all), the recipe either from the card box or from my own expanding collection, both equally real, both equally mine. The kitchen holds all of it — the old recipes and the new ones, the teacher's food and the student's food, the grief and the joy and the cinnamon. All of it. Always.

The trees along the highway are turning — maples red, oaks gold, the Bradford pears doing their useless purple thing. Iowa falls are short and violent and beautiful. The kitchen shifts to slow mode: crockpots, Dutch ovens, the oven at 375 from September through April. The fall cooking is the cooking of a woman settling in for the long season.

Apple crisp was on the counter, but this cake was the thing I kept coming back to — the one that felt right for the week, for the season, for the particular ache of sitting across from people who are just beginning to trust that things might work out. Pineapple pecan cake is Marlene’s kind of recipe: nothing fussy, nothing that needs to prove itself, just a pan of something sweet and generous that feeds more people than you expect and holds together beautifully even after a few days. I made it the same afternoon I got home from Hardin County, oven at 375, pecans toasted in the dry skillet while the batter came together, and by the time it was done the kitchen smelled like exactly the place I needed to be.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, undrained
1 cup chopped pecans, divided
Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and lightly flour a 9x13-inch baking pan.
Mix the batter. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, vanilla, and the entire can of crushed pineapple with its juice. Stir by hand until just combined — do not overmix. Fold in 3/4 cup of the chopped pecans.
Bake. Pour batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 33–38 minutes, until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before frosting.
Make the frosting. Beat softened cream cheese and butter together until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and beat on low until incorporated, then increase to medium and beat until light, about 1 more minute.
Frost and finish. Spread cream cheese frosting evenly over the cooled cake. Scatter the remaining 1/4 cup chopped pecans over the top. Slice into squares and serve from the pan.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pineapple Pecan Cake — The Kitchen Holds All of It