I love fresh Pineapples. The fruit is a bit difficult to cut but once you are past the spiky hurdle, its all fruity and sweet, totally worth it ! This recipe is a classic Pineapple cake recipe with pineapple chunks and light coconut – lemon frosting, an amazing recipe for Pina Colada lovers !
As a child, my definition of cake was a simple pineapple cake with vanilla cream frosting. Pineapple cake is sweet, moist and lightly scented. Have it with fresh vanilla cream frosting and it is still so light on stomach that one can easily come for a second serving.
I always have my eyes set on the pineapple when ever we go grocery shopping but i am usually not as motivated to pick it up for the fear of going through with the cutting process. Last week i found a packet with pre-cut pineapple slices. It was an opportunity not to be missed.
We ate a whole lot for our evening snack that day but it was still too far from getting finished. The first recipe i could think of was “Pineapple cake”. I remember that for me, my delight in the pineapple cake was always the pineapple chunk on top of the slice.
My version of Pineapple cake has loads of those childhood memories infused here in form of pineapple chunks which come as nostalgic surprises while you are savoring every bite of this beautiful cake.
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS SLICE
Pineapple express slice
Recipe
- 500 gms Pineapple slices/chunks (Fresh or canned. Fresh preferred). Mine were extra juicy and hence i took less liquid, if your’s is not as juicy, adjust water/milk accordingly.
- 500 gms All purpose flour
- 3/4 cup coconut milk (optional. can substitute with Milk/ water)
- 50 gms butter/coconut oil (you can even omit the use of butter in this recipe. The coconut milk helps maintain the softness and the moist)
- 50 gms granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp soda bi carb
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon powder
For the Coconut lemon Glaze
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 3 tsp of Fresh shredded coconut (optional)
Method
- Set your oven at 375 degrees F and preheat. Take the spring form cake tin and line with butter paper/ wax paper to avoid the cake sticking to the tin while baking. If you don’t have butter paper, you can straight away grease the tin and sprinkle some flour on it to create an even flour surface on the tin.
- Meanwhile, divide the pineapple chunks into 2 parts. Take one part and puree it in a mixie/ food processor. The other half can be cut into thin slices or chunks.
- In a bowl, sieve through all your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, soda-bi-carb and cinnamon powder) and mix well.
- In a flat pan, take butter/coconut oil and melt. To this, add the coconut milk, water and sugar. Stir till the sugar dissolves. Now add in the pineapple puree, pineapple chunks and the vanilla extract. Mix well.
- Add spoonful of dry mixture to the wet mixture and fold in gently in one direction. Do so with the complete dry mixture. Create a homogenous batter mixture. Note : Do not whisk the mixture or else the cake will not come out fluffy post baking.
- Check for the consistency of the Cake batter. It should be of “Dropping consistency”. You may add a little more water if required.
- Pour the batter in the Cake tin and put to bake in the oven. The cake should take approximately 40 minutes.
- You must check the status of the cake in 20 minutes to ensure that the cake is baking evenly from all sides. Check with a tester (fork/pin) if the cake is baked. To check, insert the tester in the center of the cake. The cake is baked when the tester comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and let it cool a little on a cooling rack. Note: For an even moist cake, you can add pineapple juice once the cake has cooled down a little. The cake will absorb the juice real quick. If you add the juice, try and consume the cake within 2 days.
- While the cake cools down, take a small bowl and to this add the icing sugar. Now add 1 tsp at a time and mix till the sugar dissolves (depending on the quantity of sugar, you may have to add more than 1 tsp of lemon juice). To this, add fresh shredded coconut (optional). Adjust the consistency of the lemon glaze by adding or subtracting the quantity of the lemon juice.
- With the help of a spoon/ladle, pour the lemon glaze generously over the warm cake. The glaze tends to get absorbed by the warm cake , giving it a tangy and fruit sweet flavor.
Note :- Keep the cake refrigerated once the cake is cooled down completely. You may warm the cake a little before serving ( i like my pineapple express slice a little warm as the glaze tastes amazing with the warm fruity cake). The cake lasts for about a week ..though i bet its so divine that you will see it vanish within a day ! 🙂
The result was a light scented,beautiful and aromatic cake which was so tempting that i cut out a slice right after i poured the glaze over the cake. Maybe that’s why i named this recipe “Pineapple Express Slice” 😛
The fresh, warm pineapple cake tasted amazing and was so soft that it almost melted in the mouth !
I love the light yellow color of this cake and the translucent glaze works perfectly to compliment the subtle and sophisticated look of the cake.
The pineapple puree gives a mild taste to the cake and the chunks creates the juicy bursts of surprise and delight.
If you liked the Pineapple Express Slice recipe and you like fruity cakes, you might like to see:-
I will definitely try this on rakhi..and let you know how it turns out..looks yummy..will the half cup icing sugar dissolve with just half a lemon?
Hi Swati,
Hope you are doing good. This recipe will surely be a good way of celebrating Rakhi !! 🙂
About your query, well though lemon sizes vary a lot in different places, i would say more or less about 2-3 tsp does the job – which is about 1/2 lemon juice(provided the lemon is real juicy and fresh). Just keep one whole lemon reserved for this and adjust the quantity as per the required consistency. Also, choose the icing sugar as that is much finer than the granulated one and it dissolves in less amount of liquid. Do not use water or the cake will tend to spoil sooner.
Do let me know how the recipe turns out and share your pics too !
Thanks for reading the recipe ! 🙂
Take care
Pingback: Chocolate glazed coconut balls | Divine Spice Box
Pingback: Recipes | Divine Spice Box
You mentioned 500gms of flour. How many cups exactly is it? 4 cups?
Hi Kanthi 🙂
Sorry for the late reply. With so many celebrations around the corner, i have been running around a bit.. now for your answer
Well cup sizes varies at times .. mine holds about 130 gms, so i would say it is would be just less than 4 cups but i guess an extra few gms of flour shall not change the recipe much so u can take than as 4 cups !
Hope this helps 🙂 Happy New year
Pingback: Cakes to try this summer – Compilation | Divine Spice Box
Hi Prachi,
Hope you are doing well, this cake sounds lovely, I just wanted to ask you what size cake (pans) I would need to use for making this cake? It would be helpful if you would be able to suggest round and square or rectangle sizes? I don’t mind making this recipe as two separate sponge cakes, hopefully this may help you give me sizing measurements.
Hope to hear from you real soon.
Best Regards
D!
Hi Dilpreet,
Nice to hear from you. I am happy to see that you are interested in this recipe. This recipe yields 1 cake of 9inch dia and 3 inches height. Usually cake tins are also sized like that. i chose a circular spring form cake tin for making this cake.You can choose between a rectangular cake for a bread loaf appeal or a circular cake tin for a typical cake look. Hope i answered ur question well. Do give this cake a go and let me know how it turned out 🙂
Hi Prachi, thanks ever so much for replying and the helpful information, yes I intend to make this cake in the very near future, as I’ve been looking for an eggless pineapple cake recipe and this one is the perfect size for me, I’ll be making it as a traditional cake and have a 9 inch springform circular pan, i’m excited and looking forward to baking it and will let you know how it turned out.
I’ve yet to try the corn bread, thanks for replying to my questions then regarding the cake tin size.
Many thanks
D!