Pineapple upside down cake

I needed to bake a cake for Jin Xiu's birthday and I found a recipe for a cheesecake which would take 2 days to make. 

I had to find another recipe which was quick and something less sweet and chocoloately that he might like. 

He  LOVES butter.

He LOVES pineapple.

Perfect. 

An easy peasey quick upside down pineapple cake. 

It is rich and dense rather then a spongy texture. I think the buttery flavor is a winner for this one. 

I was using a spring form pan so just be aware that if you do, make sure you wrap the inside bottom with layers or baking paper, and have the cake pan on a tray just in case the caramel will start oozing out. Which it did. 

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

1 cup of dark brown sugar

1/2 cup of unsalted butter

1 can of pineapple slices

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

6 tbs cake flour

6tbs ground almonds

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 3/4 sugar

240g butter

4 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

3/4 sour cream

salt

1) To make caramel topping. Melt brown sugar and butter in saucepan on medium heat until mixture is bubbly. (Stop stirring when sugar starts to melt). Pour mixture into a pan (with high sides). Arrange pineapple slices in a single layer on top of the caramel mixture. Leave aside.

2) Preheat over to 160C.

3) Whisk flours, almonds, baking powder and salt. 

4) In a separate bowl, beat sugar and butter until light. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla and add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream in 2 additions. Beat well after each addition. Pour cake batter gently over caramel and pineapple in pan.   

5) Bake cake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, or till skewer comes out clean. 

6) Cool pan for 10 minutes. Turn cake onto a platter. Serve warm. 

A happy birthday boy!

And we had it with ice cream. Jin Xiu's cookie and cream fav flavour! Weird but delish!

Passionfruit Cake

I was passing along Victoria Market when I noticed that they were selling 6 passionfruit for $2!

Better news, Bianca was popping along and I needed to bake her a cake. 

I found this recipe off bestrecipes.com  and tweak it a little as usual. I don't like too much of butter and sugar so I tend to cut them to a third anyway. 

The recipe requires 4 pulp of passionfruit which including the seeds. Surprisingly the seeds gave a crunchy texture and we all enjoyed it.  

This cake has icing on the top. 

And if you don't like icing, I think with just the cake and have a passionfruit coulis will do a great trick too. 

Passionfruit Cake

125 g butter

1/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

2 cups of self-raising flour

1/2 cup milk

4 pulp of passionfruit (with seeds)

Icing:

1 tablespoon of butter

1 1/2 cup of icing sugar

2 pulp of passionfruit, sieved  (without seeds)

1) Preheat oven to 180 C. Brush a round 20cm cake pan with butter and line the sides with non-stick baking paper. 

2) Cream butter and sugar. Add in the eggs to combine. 

3) Add in sifted flour alternating it with milk. Then add passionfruit pulp until all combined.

4) Pour in cake pan and bake for 40 minutes or until skewers into cake comes out of clean. 

5) To make icing, Whisk butter and icing sugar till combined. Then add sieved pulp.

6) When cake comes out from the oven, using a skewer, poke around the cake. When icing is poured on the cake, this will help the icing absorbed into the cake easily. 

sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce

winter comes along and I crave for sticky date

I find it really hard to hunt for a good pudding. 

some will be to floury or too dense that half way through your slice, it gets overwhelmingly rich.

My mum flew over the other day with a kilo (yes! 1 KILO!) of dates. 

I have been telling her on the phone that I needed some dates- having the dates here in Melb are dry and not as juicy as the one we have at home. Little did I know that she had hauled in 1 kilo of dates for me. So now, I have dates all over my fridge. :(

So here it is, a slight adaptation. I have reduced the sugar slightly. 

Sticky date pudding

270g (1 1/2 cups) deseeded dried dates
312ml (1 1/4 cups) water
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
60g (1/4 cup) butter, roughly chopped (we use salted butter)
2 large eggs (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract
188g (1 1/4 cups) self-raising flour
150g (2/3 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar

Butterscotch Sauce
180g (3/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons, firmly packed) brown sugar
300ml (1 cup plus 2 1/2 tablespoons) cream (35 to 40 percent fat)
25ml (1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon) golden syrup
25g (1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon) butter (we use salted butter)

Place dates and water in a small saucepan over high heat. When the mixture starts to boil, add bicarbonate of soda and 60g butter, and remove from the heat. Stir and then set aside for 25 minutes (the butter will melt during this time).

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 Celsius fan-forced). If you are not using a fan-forced oven, adjust the oven rack to the lower half of the oven so the top of the pudding will be in the centre of the oven.

Grease a 20cm diameter (top inside measurement) round springform pan and line the base and side with baking paper.

Place cooled date mixture in a food processor. Pulse mixture a few times to form a chunky paste.

Add eggs and vanilla to date mixture and pulse a couple of times until just combined.

Stir flour and 150g (2/3 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar together in a medium bowl. Use the back of the spoon to break up any lumps of brown sugar. Add date mixture to the flour mixture and gently fold the ingredients together until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan.

If, when baking, the pudding starts to overbrown, loosely cover it with greaseproof paper.

Begin making the sauce (see instructions below) about 10 minutes before the pudding has finished baking.

Bake the pudding for about 50-60 minutes, or until it springs back when lightly pressed in the centre. A thin-bladed knife or wooden skewer inserted into the centre of the pudding should come out without any batter attached.

Leave pudding in the pan and allow it to cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Using a skewer, pierce several deep holes in the pudding. Pour about 125ml (1/2 cup) of the hot butterscotch sauce over the pudding. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before removing from the pan.

Reheat sauce if necessary. Serve pudding with hot butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream.

Store leftover pudding and sauce in the refrigerator or freezer (we freeze the sauce separately). Suitable to reheat.

Butterscotch Sauce

Place sauce ingredients in a small saucepan. Stir mixture over medium to medium-high heat until the mixture comes to the simmer. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove sauce from heat and set aside until required. 

maple glazed crispy bacon

bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon baconbacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon 

That is all I have been thinking about these few days.

A good friend of mine gave me this mind blowing choc a year ago- bacon with choc. And I just love it! sounds weird all together but was amazing! bitter sweet from the choc and salty bacon bits from the bacon was a perfect combo exploding in your mouth!

So I have decided to make crispy bacon instead :)

Maple glazed Crispy Bacon

500 g sliced bacon

4 tbs maple syrup

1 tbs cinnamon

- Preheat oven to 200 C. Mix together maple syrup and cinnamon. I like a lot of cinnamon. I love the smell around the house. 

- Spray oil on rack & Line bacon strips on it. I prefer having the bacon fats drips to the bottom rather then swimming with the bacon. 

-Using a baking brush, glazed the bacon with maple mix. Pop it into oven.

-Every 15 mins continue to glazed the bacon until crisp. I like mine crispy, so I had it in for about 40 mins. 

-Remove bacon from rack and serve it hot! - and with cold cider of course.