Here's a recipe for pineapple upside-down cake from scratch. This one also comes from my old USDA Homemaker's Cookbook - it's probably my favorite cookbook in my house because so many of the recipes are super easy and good. The cookbook also suggests using peaches or apricots in place of the pineapple. I haven't tried those yet.

PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

• 5 Tablespoons butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 6 drained pineapple rings (or 1 cup drained chunks)
• 6 maraschino cherries, halved (optional)
• 12 pecan or walnut halves
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• 1¼ teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup milk

Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter in a 9-inch round or 8-inch square cake pan over low heat. Sprinkle brown sugar over butter. Arrange fruit and nuts in sugar mixture. In a small mixing bown, mix 3 Tablespoons of softened butter with granulated sugar. Add egg and beat until creamy. Add vanilla. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt thoroughly. Add to sugar mixture alternately with milk. Spread batter evenly over the fruit. Bake at 350° F (moderate oven) 30 to 40 minutes. Loosen cake from sides of pan and invert on serving plate. Allow to cool 5 minutes before removing the pan.

Everything is better with bacon, right? I ran across this crazy idea for apple-bacon muffins in a 1940s issue of Woman's Day magazine while doing some research for our local historical society's newsletter. It just happened that our church had our annual Mother-Daughter Tea just a few weeks later and we were serving muffins (pictured below), so I whipped up a couple of batches. Mmmm, were they good. The applesauce kind of merges with the muffin batter to make a nice, moist muffin, and the bacon on top gives it a bit of a salty flavor for a nice mix of sweet and salty.

To make a dozen muffins, you'll need a cup of applesauce (I used natural, unsweetened) and a bag of Oscar-Mayer Real Bacon Bits. Follow the recipe below for muffins, put a couple tablespoons of muffin batter in each muffin cup (about a quarter of the muffin cup), followed by a teaspoon of applesauce, and topped with another tablespoon or two of muffin batter. Then sprinkle a half a Tablespoon of bacon bits on top before baking following the instructions for the recipe.

Here's my "from scratch" muffin recipe from an old USDA Homemakers Cookbook my mama gave me years ago:

MUFFINS (makes 12)

• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup oil or melted shortening
• 2 cups flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sugar

Beat egg until yolk and white are well blended. Blend in milk and fat. Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Add liquid and stir until dry ingredients are barely moistened. Do not overmix. Batter should be lumpy. Fill greased or lined muffin tins half full of batter. Bake at 400° F (hot oven) 20 to 25 minutes.

Here are a few other variations to the recipe:

Blueberry muffins -Increase sugar to ½ cup. Lightly blend ¾ cup fresh or drained canned blueberries when combining liquid and dry incredients. Do not crush berries.

Bran muffins - Reduce flour to 1¼ cups. Mix 2 cups of bran flakes or raisin bran cereal with dry ingredients before adding liquid.

Oatmeal Raisin muffins - Reduce flour to 1¼ cups. Mix 1 cup quick rolled oats and ½ cup raisins with dry ingredients before adding liquid.