PINEAPPLE AND COCONUT CAKE
SERVES 10-14
Prep time: 20 min. Cooking: 25 min (plus cooling, drying)
With tropical pineapple and coconut flavours, a silky sponge and vanilla cream cheese frosting, this tray cake is the perfect sweet finish to your feast.
• butter, for greasing
• 280g self-raising flour
• 120g coconut sugar (see tip, bottom)
• 120g caster sugar
• 100g desiccated coconut
• 100g walnuts, finely chopped
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 300g finely chopped fresh pineapple (about 11/3 cups)
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 100ml vegetable oil • dried pineapple (see tip, bottom), edible flowers and chopped pistachio nuts, to serve
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
• 400g cream cheese, softened
• 200g crème fraîche
• 200g pure icing sugar
• scraped seeds of 1 vanilla bean
1. Preheat the oven to 175°C. Grease a 20x30cm lamington tin and line with baking paper, leaving a little of the paper overhanging. Combine the flour, sugars, coconut, walnuts and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl; add the fresh pineapple, egg and oil and stir to combine.
2. Spread the batter into the prepared tin and bake until golden and the cake springs back when lightly pressed (25 minutes). Cool in the tin (15 minutes), then lift out and cool completely on a wire rack.
3. For the cream cheese frosting: In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the ingredients together until smooth.
4. Spread the frosting over the cake and top with the dried pineapple, flowers and pistachio.