Tuscan Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Some years ago while visiting my friend, food writer Nancy Harmon Jenkins, in Tuscany, we had lunch with her neighbor, Mita Antolini, a local farmer. Mita made her “special dessert” in an old wood-burning stove. To my surprise, it turned out to be the best pineapple upside-down cake I’d ever tasted. The cake’s texture was unique: kind of firm but light at the same time. I tried to re-create the effect of Italian durum wheat flour by adding a little whole-wheat flour to the batter. It is not