pineapple and coconut cake with fluffy cream cheese icing

pineapple and coconut cake with fluffy cream cheese icing

4 Nov 2024

I'm constantly time poor these days, so my bakes of late have been simple affairs. This is what drew me to this recipe for a pineapple and coconut cake with fluffy cream cheese icing from 'Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking' by Danielle Alvarez with Libby Travers. 

Danielle's recipes are always jam packed with flavour and to make this pineapple and coconut cake, I needed nothing more than a bowl, a can opener and a wooden spoon. It was supposed to be a 2 layer cake filled with cream cheese icing and bedecked with dried pineapple flowers but life got in the way and it morphed into a slab cake. I ramped up the coconut flavour by using dried coconut milk powder in the cream cheese icing and the end result was nothing short of lush. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm square cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger version, please click the link above to the original recipe. 

Pineapple & Coconut Cake with Cream Cheese Icing 

Ingredients

220g crushed pineapple in juice (1/2 tin)
1 egg
165g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
75 ml neutral oil
45g desiccated coconut
125g plain flour
35g wholemeal flour
 ¼ tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb of soda 
 ¼ tsp fine sea salt

Fluffy cream cheese icing
125g full fat softened cream cheese
125g unsalted butter, squidgy soft 
pinch salt
½ tsp vanilla extract
40g dried milk powder/dried coconut milk powder
125g icing sugar

To decorate
30g toasted coconut flakes
15g dried pineapple pieces (optional)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C conventional. Grease and line the base of a 17cm square cake tin with baking paper. 

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the pineapple (including the juice), eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil. In another mixing bowl, combine the desiccated coconut, flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Tip the dry ingredients into the wet and whisk to combine. 

Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 30-40 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin.

Icing
Place the cream cheese, butter, milk powder, salt and vanilla extract in the bowl of electric stand mixer. Sift the icing sugar over the top. Beat with the paddle attachment for 6-8 minutes on speed 4 (below low) until pale, and fluffy. Store covered in the fridge until needed. If refrigerated, rewarm in the microwave in 20-second bursts until softened.

Lift the cake onto a platter or board, removing the baking paper from underneath. Spread the icing over the cake and finish with the coconut flakes and pineapple pieces, if using. 

It might have been a bit less glamorous than initially planned, but as expected this cake was delicious.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen. 

Bye for now,

Jillian 

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victoria sponge cake

victoria sponge cake

28 Oct 2024

Making a Victoria Sponge cake has been on my to-do list for a while because there isn't one one in my recipe archive. I do have a recipe for the Flour and Stone Old Fashioned Vanilla Cake, which is a classic Victoria Sponge Cake just called by another name.

A Victoria Sponge cake is usually made with equal quantities of eggs, butter, sugar and flour loosened with a little milk. As an avid follower of Nicola Lamb I thought I'd try her version, which mixes things up a bit by adding a bit of cream and some egg yolks to the batter. The batter came together pretty easily but it diid look a little curdled. It baked up just fine though and the end result, sandwiched with cream and some home made rhubarb and raspberry jam, was simply delicious.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm layer cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger Victoria Sponge Cake, please refer to Nicola's original recipe.

Nicola Lamb Victoria Sponge Cake
Cake 
135g unsalted butter, soft (20°C is great)
3g sea salt flakes
165g caster sugar
45g cream
2 whole eggs 
1 egg yolk 
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g whole milk
165g plain flour
10g baking powder (around 2½ tsp)
15g sugar for a crispy top

Filling 
200mls cream
1/3 cup berry jam
1 punnet berries

To decorate
Berries to decorate
Icing sugar

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190°C, conventional. Grease and line 2 x 17cm tins. Set aside.

Cream the soft butter with salt and sugar for 2 minutes on medium speed using a stand mixer. This is enough for the butter and sugar to aerate slightly and become a little paler, but not so much that it is whipped. 

Mix together the cream, whole eggs, egg yolks, vanilla extract and milk in a large jug.

Sift together the plain flour and baking powder. Set aside. Starting with the liquid, alternate adding the liquid and dry ingredients into the creamed butter and sugar, in around three batches, scraping down as necessary. 

Divide the mixture between the two tins, around 315-335g per cake. Sprinkle one cake with the sugar. Place the tins on the centre rack and bake for 25 minutes at 190°C, conventional, then check if the sponge is golden and bouncy, and pulling away from the sides slightly. Bake for additional 5 minutes if it seems underbaked. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a rack.

Filling
Whip cream to very soft peaks, set aside.

Assembly
On the plain sponge, spread jam all over the base. Spoon 2/3 of the cream onto the jam layer and spread to the edges with the back of a spoon - leave a 1-inch border if you don't want it to splurge too much! Cover with berries. As a splurging insurance policy, you can pop your cake in the fridge or freezer to firm up the cream a bit. Place the sugared sponge on top. 

Just before serving, sprinkle with icing sugar, top with a splodge of cream and the extra berries. Keeps in the fridge for 3 days.

As expected it was absolutely delicious and I'm glad I put a small slice aside for  later because it disappeared pretty quickly.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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chocolate stout cake

chocolate stout cake

7 Oct 2024

This is another classic story of cake redemption. Quite a few years ago I jumped onto the stout cake bandwagon and whenever I made it, using Nigella Lawson's recipe, it was very well received. One of my colleagues so liked the cake that she made it for her daughter's 21st birthday. For reasons I'm unsure of, I stopped making it.

Last month, a workmates' birthday came up and I decided to dust the cobwebs off the chocolate stout cake recipe. I topped the cake with my absolutely amazing Natalie Paull inspired cream cheese icing. The cake was a roaring success but I didn't photograph it, so I made another chocolate stout cake just so I could share the recipe with you. I took the cake into work and I can report that my workmates didn't mind one little bit.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake. If you'd like to make a larger version, I've added a link to the original recipe - see below - which makes a 23 cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Chocolate stout cake, adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe.

Ingredients

120 mls stout
120g unsalted butter
30g cocoa 
200g caster sugar
65g sour cream at room temperature
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
140g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Icing
80g full fat softened cream cheese
80g unsalted butter, squidgy soft 
1 tsp vanilla paste
25g dried milk powder
pinch salt
80g icing sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional and grease, flour and line the base of a 17cm springform tin with baking paper.

Pour the stout into a large wide saucepan, add the butter — in spoons or slices — and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb soda.

Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake on the centre rack for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake. When the cake's cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing.

Icing
Place the cream cheese, butter, vanilla paste, milk powder and salt in the bowl of electric stand mixer. Sift the icing sugar over the top. Beat with the paddle attachment for 10 minutes on speed 4 (below low) until pale, and fluffy. Store covered in the fridge until needed. If refrigerated, rewarm in the microwave in 20-second bursts until softened. 

Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

The cake is a thing of beauty in its simplicity and I believe this is the correct cake to icing ratio.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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blood orange custard creams

blood orange custard creams

4 Oct 2024

Last Sunday I discovered the biscuit tin was empty so I opened up my copy of Beatrix Bakes:Another Slice, by Natalie Paull, and I decided to make some tangelo custard creams. No tangelos? No worries, as I had a few blood oranges in the fridge. The biscuits are made with pantry staples so with everything available I made a batch whilst all around me the world was sleeping. 

I reduced the blood orange juice for the filling as instructed and the end result was a blood red syrup. My kitchen looked like a crime scene and the whipped filling turned a hectic hot pink fluoro colour not seen in nature. Undaunted I filled the biscuits and I can tell you that the filling was delicious. It tasted pretty much the same as an elevated version of the filling from an Arnott's orange slice cream biscuit, one of my favourites.

I adapted the original recipe a little and made smaller cookies because I didn't have a 7 cm cookie cutter and I prefer small biscuits anyway. That way I can have 2 biscuits with my cup of tea, not just one. Here’s the recipe for you which makes twelve 5cm biscuits. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Blood orange custard creams
Ingredients
100g cool pliable unsalted butter
25g icing sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 blood orange (reserve juice for the filling)
100g plain flour
50g custard powder
Pinch fine sea salt
Cooking oil spray

Filling
80mls blood orange juice
100g icing sugar
Pinch salt
45g unsalted butter, very soft and squidgy

Method

Put the butter, icing sugar and finely grated orange rind into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment beat on speed 4 (below medium) for 10 minutes or until the mixture forms a creamy orange paste. Scrape down the sides of the bowl twice during mixing.

Lightly combine the dry ingredients and add to the creamed butter. Mix on 1 (low) until cohesive and no flour or butter streaks are visible.

Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. If the dough feels cool and ‘easy’, divide it into 2 portions and start rolling straight away. Otherwise form the dough into 2 fat discs, cover it in plastic wrap and chill for 15 minutes. The dough should be around 15°C and feel like playdough.

Preheat the oven to 140°C (160°C in my oven). Lightly spray 2 flat trays with cooking oil and line with baking paper.

On a lightly floured surface roll out half the dough to a 4mm thickness. Keep moving the dough and flouring underneath as you roll. If the dough cracks just re-roll it. If the cookies or dough stick to the work surface shimmy an offset spatula underneath to loosen them.

Use a 5cm round cutter to stamp out the cookies. Immediately lift them onto the baking tray. Collect up any scraps and roll again. Repeat the process with the remaining dough. Before baking, prick 3 rows of marks in the centre of each cookie with a fork so they look like deep-set buttons. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until set (when you can easily lift one up) – they should be fully cooked and dry looking but not brown. Remove from the oven and place the trays to cool on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes before filling.

While the cookies bake, juice the blood orange (don’t strain) to give you around 80g of juice. If you’re a bit short, you can top it up with some water. Reduce the juice in the microwave in 2–3-minute bursts until you have 20g of juice then set aside to cool. 

Place the reduced juice in the bowl of a stand mixer and add the remaining filling ingredients. Beat with the paddle attachment on speed 4 (below medium) for 8 minutes until the filling is fluffy, ultra creamy and hot pink (!) in colour. It should hold its shape and not be melty or slack. If the filling does slump, remove the beater and place the bowl into the fridge for 30 minutes. Return to the mixer and beat again until cool and fluffy.

Lay half the cooled cookies bottoms up on a clean tea towel and pipe or spoon a blob of the filling on each one, about 1-2 tsps. To ensure the filling doesn’t form a crust, quickly sandwich with the top cookie and using the palms of your hand, lightly press with a swirly wiggle to bring the filling out to the sides, just flush with the edge of the cookie. Chill for 10 minutes.

The biscuits will keep for 2 days in an airtight container or up to 2 weeks, if chilled, but I can assure you they won't last that long. 

Vibrant aren't they, with a flavour to match. The next time my biscuit jar is empty I'm planning to adapt the recipe to make a batch of lemon melting moments filled with passionfruit filling. Yum!

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen. 

Bye for now, 

Jillian

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salted peanut butter babka

salted peanut butter babka

30 Sept 2024

A few years ago I was the babka queen but it's been at least 2 years since I last made one. A few months ago I saw a recipe for salted peanut scrolls in Delicious magazine. They sounded delicious and I planned to make a batch, that is until I wondered whether a peanut butter flavoured babka was a thing.

After I discovered it was indeed a thing, I decided to make one. I used the Honey and Co babka dough recipe, then filled the babka with the Cherry Moon General store filling, then soaked it in maple flavoured syrup after taking it from the oven. Making a babka is a 2 day process. I usually make the dough and refrigerate it overnight before shaping, proving and baking.

It was quite cold  in Sydney the day I made the dough, so it took 4 hours for my filled babka to prove and instead of brunch, I had a slice for afternoon tea. Here’s the recipe for you which makes one babka, inspired by this recipe.  For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Salted Peanut Butter and Maple Babka inspired by Cherry Moon General Store
Ingredients
90 g diced unsalted butter at room temperature
2 tsp dried yeast
1 egg
40g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
100-125 mls milk
330 g plain flour
A pinch of table salt

Filling
100g smooth peanut butter
55g roasted salted peanuts, roughly chopped
100g brown sugar

To finish
2 tbs melted butter or cream
Sea salt flakes

Maple flavoured syrup 
100g caster sugar
100 mls water
1½ tsp maple extract

Method
Place the butter, yeast, egg, sugar, vanilla and 100 mls of the milk in a large mixing bowl, then top with the flour and salt. Use the dough attachment on your mixer or your hands to bring it all together to a smooth, shiny dough, adding the remaining 20 mls of milk if it looks dry. Don’t worry too much if you still have some whole flecks of butter running through the dough; they will make your final bun super-light.

Once the dough has a nice texture to it, wrap the bowl in plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. You can leave it there for up to 12 hours, but not much longer or it will start to double in size.

Assembly
Place the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a rectangle of about 40cm x 30cm. While the dough is still cool, evenly spread with peanut butter. Combine the peanuts and the brown sugar in a bowl then sprinkle the mixture over the peanut butter.

If the dough has softened too much for you to handle it, place on a tray and chill in the fridge for 10 minutes to firm up. While you are waiting, butter a 1kg loaf tin and line the base and long sides with baking paper, making sure that there is an overhang so that you will be able to lift the baked loaf out easily.

Tightly roll up the dough from the long side. Use a pastry cutter or sharp knife to cut the log in half along its length to expose the layers. Place the halves with the cut sides facing upwards. Lift one halved log over the other so that they form a cross at their midpoints, with the filling layers still pointing upwards. Continue to twist the strands over each other until the dough looks like a lovely, twisted plait.

Place in the lined baking tin and leave to prove in a warm place until the dough is fluffy, soft and doubled in size. This will take about 1 and 1/2 hours in a warm kitchen, or up to 4 hours if it is chilly.

Preheat the oven to 220°C conventional. Brush the surface of the babka with melted butter or cream then sprinkle the top with a few salt flakes. Place the babka in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 190°C. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, then turn the tin around for an even bake and leave for another 10 minutes. Bake for a further 15-20 minutes until the babka is well browned and cooked through.

While the babka is in the oven, prepare the maple flavoured syrup. Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook for a few minutes until thickened. Take off the heat then add the maple extract. Set aside until needed.

Remove the babka from the oven and immediately pour the maple flavoured syrup all over the hot babka. You must let the babka cool completely in the tin or it will fall apart.

My next door neighbour loved it and came back for seconds whilst the babka was declared 'good but different' by my work colleagues and definitely was at it's best when still warm.

This was my first attempt at this babka and whilst good, I consider it a work in progress. The yeast I used to make the dough was on it's last legs, so the dough didn't rise as much as I would like and the filling was a bit dry, making it hard to twist. I think a little butter added to the peanut butter would solve this problem, so I'm keen to make the babka again, maybe drizzled with a little maple flavoured icing.  

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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lemon and blueberry olive oil bundt cake

lemon and blueberry olive oil bundt cake

29 Sept 2024

I wanted to test out the cake goop that had failed so spectacularly and to test it out I used a bundt tin with more elaborate pattern. But what bundt cake to make, I asked myself?

A few posts back I made a lime and raspberry bundt cake and I kept thinking how familiar the cake was to me. Looking through the archives I found a recipe for a whole blood orange olive oil cake that was very similar to that recipe so I adapted it to make this lemon and blueberry olive oil cake.

I've made a few bundt cakes since the great cake goop disaster of 2024, and I've discovered if I use the cake goop plus a dusting of flour, the cakes have all come out unscathed. The ultimate cake goop test will involve a cake made with golden syrup which usually welds itself firmly to the cake tin. It's in the pipelines. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes a small bundt cake, using a 5-cup bundt tin. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Lemon and blueberry olive oil bundt cake 

Ingredients
135g caster sugar
3 tsp lemon rind
1 egg, beaten
½ cup Greek yoghurt

20g lemon juice
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil or a neutral tasting oil
1 cup (150g) self-raising flour
pinch salt

85g blueberries, fresh or frozen

To decorate
Sifted icing sugar or lemon icing, recipe below
Candied lemon rind/dried blueberries

Lemon Icing
100g sifted icing sugar

pinch salt
3 tsp lemon juice

Method
Grease a 5-cup bundt tin with cake goop (equal quantities of softened butter, oil and flour) then lightly dust with flour. Place the tin in the fridge until required.

Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. 

Mix the sugar and lemon rind together in a bowl, and using your fingertips, rub everything together until the sugar is fragrant and damp. Add the egg and whisk until pale and thick. Beat in the yoghurt and lemon juice, then gradually whisk in the olive oil.

Sift the flour into a large bowl so it’s lovely and aerated. Remove 1 tbs flour to coat the blueberries. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the flour and using a large spoon or spatula, gently fold everything together until just combined. Toss the blueberries lightly with the reserved flour (this will prevent them from sinking to the base of the cake), then add to the batter and gently fold through until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bake for 45 minutes on the centre rack at 180°C, conventional, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then invert the cake onto the rack to cool completely. When cool, dust with icing sugar or you can top with some lemon icing.

Lemon icing

In a small bowl combine the icing sugar with the salt. Add enough juice to form a thick icing. Drizzle the icing over the top of the cooled cake, decorating with a few dried blueberries and candied lemon rind if desired. Allow to set before serving.

This is a nice, easy to make cake that always delivers on flavour. 

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen. 

Bye for now, 

Jillian

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