Tropical Granola Flapjacks

These little brown squares of sweet, sticky cereal don't look very photogenic, but using a tropical fruit granola in my usual flapjack recipe, to replace the 'add-ins' and some of some of the oats, made an interesting variation. The flapjacks were crisper and lighter than usual, as the cereal in the granola has already been baked once. They were also quite a lot sweeter, as there was a significant amount of sugar already in the granola, both in the cereal clusters and used in the preparation of the dried fruits - I should have taken account of this and reduced the sugar I used a little. The granola I used contained dried banana chips, papaya, pineapple and coconut, which gave a sweet tropical flavour to the flapjacks.

Melt 160g of butter with 70g light muscovado sugar and 100g of golden syrup, in a large saucepan. When melted and just coming to the boil, turn off the heat and add 200g rolled oats and 200g of granola cereal, mixing well to coat all the cereal and oats with the wet mixture. Line a 20cm (8") square baking tin with baking parchment, and tip in the flapjack mixture. Spread evenly, pressing down firmly, then bake for 25 minutes at 180C. Mark into squares or bars while still hot, but leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.

Morning Glory Yogurt Loaf

an Anna Olson recipe

I'd never heard of Morning Glory Bread, until I started looking for a recipe for a loaf-shaped cake using yogurt in the batter. It seems that it's a quick breakfast 'bread', of the type popular in America and Canada - the sort of thing that's often called a tea-bread over here, as we haven't really embraced the habit of eating what seems like cake for breakfast, yet! It's raised with baking powder rather than yeast, and is packed full of whatever the cook has available in the way of fruit and nuts. This Anna Olson recipe adds tinned pineapple (or fresh peaches), raisins, coconut and orange zest, but on further investigation I found recipes adding things such as bananas, walnuts and even grated carrots too.

I had already decided to make a coconut flavoured loaf, as that was just about all I had in my store of cake 'add-ins', and had found a couple of possible recipes, but when I came across this recipe, with it's extra flavour elements, I knew I had to try it. Luckily I also had the remains of a bag of sultanas, that I could use instead of raisins, and there was a tin of pineapple rings in the larder, which I could blitz to turn into crushed pineapple. I used unsweetened desiccated coconut; I didn't think it would make too much difference as there was quite a lot of sugar in the loaf.

Most yogurt cakes use oil instead of butter, so are made by simply mixing wet ingredients in one bowl, dry in another and combining the two. Because this recipe used butter there was the added stage of creaming it with the sugar before adding the wet ingredients,  but it was still an easy recipe to follow.

The only problem I had was one of baking time - I've no idea how long the loaf spent in the oven, as I gave up keeping note after 90 minutes. I eventually took it out when my digital thermometer read 94C as I thought that was as near to 100C as the cake was going to get, and I needed the oven at a different temperature by then! The huge discrepancy between the recipe and my experience may have been down to a differently proportioned loaf tin (mine was short and deep), or the moisture in the tinned pineapple.

This was a very moist, close-textured loaf, because of the juicy pineapple. Although it was packed with fruit, and hadn't risen much it still seemed quite a light cake. The flavours of the pineapple and coconut were the most dominant, with the orange and touch of cinnamon providing subtle background notes. I treated this loaf as a cake, but it would also have made a good dessert, perhaps heating slices in a griddle pan and serving with poached fruit and yogurt.

The reason I wanted to bake a cake containing yogurt was that this month's AlphaBakes challenge is the letter Y. My imagination failed to come up with anything out of the ordinary for either an ingredient or a recipe name beginning with Y, so yogurt will have to do! AlphaBakes is hosted by Caroline, at Caroline Makes, and Ros, at The More Than Occasional Baker, and it is Caroline who is hosting this month's challenge.

Carrot and Pineapple Cake

I decided to make this cake to finish off a tin of pineapple chunks, which had been opened to eke out the remains of a fresh fruit salad. I can't remember ever having made a carrot cake with added pineapple before, although I was aware of their existence, of course - I knew I hadn't invented something new! To be honest, until I started looking for recipes, I thought I would be making a Hummingbird Cake, but soon realised that was a banana cake with added pineapple!

I also quickly realised that many carrot cake recipes make huge cakes! Is this because they are traditionally used as celebration cakes in the USA? After a bit of searching I found this recipe from Anna Olson, the Canadian TV cook, which seemed to make a cake of a sensible size for two people. It caught my attention because it used maple syrup and fresh ginger in the cake - two flavours I like, but didn't expect to find in a carrot cake. It also used just the amount of pineapple that I had available!

It was a pretty straightforward cake, once I'd translated the ingredients to metric weights. After being drawn to the recipe for it's use of maple syrup, I found my tin was emptier than I thought - I could only get a couple of tablespoons out of it, so made up the volume with pomegranate molasses. Obviously, this had an effect on the final flavour, but as the recipe only needed 60mls of syrup in total, I don't think the maple syrup would have been the dominant flavour in the cake, anyway. The only other point to note was that the cake cooked in only 65 minutes, rather than the 75-90 minutes suggested in the recipe. I guess there's a lot of leeway with cakes containing ingredients which can be variable in moisture content, such as grated carrots and crushed pineapple.

For the sake of our waistlines, I left off the cream cheese frosting, and made a glacé icing using some of the juices from the canned pineapple. Which brings me to the current controversy about Tate and Lyle adding maize starch to icing sugar instead of the previous E-number anticaking agent. Like other users, I found it harder work than usual to get the icing sugar through a sieve, and initially it clumped badly when liquid was added although it did become smooth eventually. I can't understand why change was really needed - I've never had a pack of icing sugar 'clump' no matter how long it's been stored.

The cake sunk a little, as it cooled, leaving a lip around the edge, which contained the glacé icing, but could have been covered up if I'd used a cream cheese frosting.

This cake was more moist and denser than the carrot cake I usually make. This didn't make it better or worse, just different! What was a disappointment was how bland it was. Considering the ingredients, I expected it to have far more depth of flavour, but there wasn't enough of either the fresh ginger or the cinnamon, and the pineapple wasn't noticeable in the taste of the cake. I'm also used to carrot cakes with either sultanas or nuts in, to add to the texture, and this was an element sorely missing here - perhaps if I'd left the pineapple in larger pieces that might have been  an improvement in that respect. A touch of citrus to lift the flavour wouldn't have come amiss either - another ingredient often found in carrot cakes, obviously for good reason! It wasn't an unpleasant cake, just not memorable enough to add to the 'cook again' list!

Note: (added 31/08/15) Silver Spoon and Aldi own brand icing sugar don't have maize starch added, so  icing sugar that is easier to work with isn't going to be difficult to find. Tate and Lyle will be losing out bigtime, I suspect!

Pineapple Mincemeat Tart

with coconut crumble topping.

I might have gone a step too far here, in a bid to make something different for Christmas, but at least I've tried it out on just the two of us, rather than jumping straight in and making it for guests.

It started with the idea that a crumble topping would speed up the process of making a large quantity of mince pies - half the rolling out, less fiddle with putting tops and bottoms together etc. Then I thought about the fact that I usually add extra apples, oranges or cranberries to bought mincemeat to make it less sweet and a more personal recipe. Adding  chopped nuts to the crumble topping would add an interesting texture too. While I was playing around with ideas, I remembered the fresh pineapple which needed eating - why not try a tropical variation of a mince pie, with pineapple in the mincemeat and coconut in the topping?

I decided to try out the concept in one big tart, rather than fiddle about with individual pies - mainly for speed of getting things done. The base was basic shortcrust pastry with no sweetening, used to line a shallow 22cm diameter flan tin. The filling was 250g mincemeat, 150g of finely chopped fresh pineapple and a teaspoon of ground rice (to absorb any excess fruit juice), spread straight onto the raw pastry. The topping was a crumble mix made by rubbing 50g coconut oil into a mix of 50g plain flour, 50g porridge oats and 35g caster sugar. I intended to add desiccated coconut to the topping, but only had flaked coconut available, so tried to break the flakes up a little as I added 25g to the crumble mix. This was sprinkled evenly over the tart filling. 

I baked the tart for 20 minutes at 200C, then lowered the temperature to 180C and baked for another 20 minutes, covering the tart loosely when I lowered the temperature, as the coconut flakes were browning too quickly.

Although I liked the coconut in the crumble topping, I didn't think the pineapple added enough flavour to be worth using - it was overwhelmed by the spices in the mincemeat. I could just have easily have added a chopped apple for the same result, which was to give the mincemeat a fresher, more tart flavour, but not a noticeably pineapple one. So, I'll  be sticking to more traditional ingredients when it's time for Christmas baking, but I will be using a crumble topping in some form this year.

I've just noticed that this is my 500th blog post - I suppose that's a good enough time as any to be a little experimental!

Pineapple Upside-down Cake

with coconut and lime sponge.

I only wanted a small dessert, for the two of us, so the sponge layer was a two-egg all-in-one mixture. As the coconut oil was fairly liquid, this could easily be made with just a spoon and bowl - no need to get out any electric appliance:

100g coconut oil
100g caster sugar
90g SR flour
50g desiccated coconut
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lime.

I used a metal non-stick pie dish, as I thought the sloping sides might look quite attractive on the inverted cake. I creamed together 50g unsalted butter, 20g golden syrup and 30g light muscovado sugar and spread this in the base of the tin to make the traditional sticky topping. On top of this I then arranged slices of cored fresh pineapple  - about 1cm thick. I put a whole slice in the centre, but had to halve the other three slices to get them to fit into the dish. Into the spaces left in the arrangement of pineapple slices I put some glacé cherry halves.

I spread the cake batter gently over the fruit, so that it wasn't dislodged, and then the cake was baked for about 35 minutes at 180C until the sponge was firm and golden. After cooling for 10 minutes the cake was turned out onto a plate to finish cooling, revealing the neat pattern of pineapple slices.

The mix of pineapple with coconut and lime gave a nice tropical flavour to this dessert, and made a pleasant change from the traditional plain sponge base. Although I used fresh pineapple, once the fruit was cooked it didn't seem very different from using tinned pineapple in the same way, so don't think that fresh fruit is really essential.

I'm entering this cake into this month's AlphaBakes Challenge (rules here), a blog challenge co-hosted by Caroline Makes and The More Than Occasional Baker. This month the challenge is hosted by Caroline, at Caroline Makes, who has chosen the letter P. In this case, P is for pineapple, obviously!

Pineapple and Carrot Cake - no added refined sugar

All of a sudden, sugar seems to be a dirty word! It doesn't matter whether we need to lose weight, or are just worried about a healthier lifestyle; either way we shouldn't be eating refined sugar! We're even told that sugar is now thought to be at the root of many illnesses previously thought to be due to eating too much fat.

I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than that, but I do find that the most effective sort of weight loss diet for me involves reducing carbohydrates, and refined carbohydrates such as white sugar are the easiest to cut out (as long as you don't ask me to cut out chocolate!). I lost a lot of weight following the 5:2 diet, where the restricted calorie intake on two days a week meant that there just wasn't room for many carbohydrates in a day's food; I also had to watch the carbs on non fasting days, or I could easily find myself eating too much in compensation for the restricted days. At the moment I'm 'resting' on a reduced carbohydrate diet, until I'm ready to tackle another bout of weight loss; I'm maintaining my weight and even still losing a little.

Anyway, that explains why I was attracted to the recipes in this article in the Daily Mail; although it is part of a series aimed at what it calls a 'sugar detox' for your body, leading to total avoidance of refined carbohydrates, the recipes here aim to sweeten cakes and desserts with only the natural sugars found in fruit and starchy vegetables. I thought the Pineapple and Carrot Cake was the recipe which best fitted in with my current eating style - it would give us something to eat with our evening cup of coffee and could be my only carbohydrate fix of the day, if I was being really strict with myself.

I deviated slightly from the recipe, in that I used sunflower oil, and I also added about three tablespoons of sultanas (one spoonful didn't look worth adding!). I had spelt flour in the store cupboard so used that rather than buckwheat flour. The sweetness in the cake comes from canned pineapple, banana, carrots, sultanas and passion fruit, and some crunchiness is added through the use of walnuts.

I was pleasantly surprised by this cake. The texture was much lighter than I expected and the combination of fruit, vegetable and nuts gave a really good flavour, although I think a little spice (perhaps cinnamon or nutmeg) would be an improvement. On first tasting I thought that the cake was really going to suffer from the lack of sugar, but the reduced sweetness grew on me, and I could see how this would be a good cake to eat if you were really serious about cutting out all refined carbohydrates - the sweetness of a 'normal' cake would tempt you back into eating more sugar. You could add some artificial sweetener to bring the flavour up to the normal levels of sweetness, but I think it's far better to train your taste buds to accept less sweetness as normal.

Upside-down Pineapple and Ginger Cake

This cake was thrown together in just a few minutes, as I needed a cake and had a pineapple lurking in the fridge which needed using. Unfortunately I'd already cut into the pineapple, so couldn't have the usual pattern of rings; instead I put together a mosaic of pineapple pieces, cutting pieces where necessary to fill the gaps. I kept the slices to around 0.5cm in thickness, as I wasn't sure how long the fruit would take to cook. I laid them on a base of 50g butter and two heaped tablespoons of muscovado sugar, melted together, then cooled in the baking pan - which was a 22cm skillet pan (no loose bottoms for this sort of cake!).

The cake batter was an all-in-one sponge based on 3 eggs and 150g of each of SR flour, softened butter and light muscovado sugar. To this I added 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 teaspoon mixed spice, 1 tablespoon black treacle and 30g chopped glacé ginger. The batter was spread gently over the pineapple pieces, and baked at 180C for around 35 minutes, until it felt firm and springy, and a cake probe came out clean of any damp crumbs.

After cooling for only a few minutes, the cake needed turning out, before the base cooled and stuck to the pan. This was when I realised I didn't have any plates large enough to turn the cake out onto. I hastily tore a double thickness of aluminium foil and laid it on a board. Using the foil meant I could transfer the cake to a storage box later, without having to lift it again. Happily the cake turned out of the pan without a single piece of pineapple being dislodged. I have memories of lots of juice at this stage, with previous cakes, but all I had was a nice sticky surface holding the pineapple down. Perhaps that's the difference between using fresh and tinned pineapple.

The pineapple was nicely cooked and the ginger sponge added a warm kick to the flavour without being too overwhelming. The cake wasn't very deep, but it was just right for the two of us, lasting for three days.

Pineapple and Blackberry Crumble

This crumble was inspired by one of the dishes made in the third heat of the Celebrity Sport Relief Bake Off Challenge, shown on TV last week. TV presenter Anita Rani, who went on to be the overall winner, made a Pineapple and Blackberry Crumble with the coconut added to the crumble topping. No recipe was given for this, but it wasn't difficult to figure out a recipe which at least featured the same flavours in the dish. Anita added (I think) cinnamon and vanilla to her pineapple, and flamed it with rum while it was cooking. She then mixed in raw blackberries before adding the topping.

As usual, with this sort of thing, my recipe is a bit 'thrown together' as I don't weigh the fruit. I know that if I half-fill my large Pyrex dish with fruit and top it with a crumble mix made from 80-100g of each ingredient, I'm going to get 4-6 portions depending on appetite. I also took the opportunity to use more of the Light at Heart sugar/stevia mix that I've been given to try. The added stevia reduces the calories by half as you only need to use half as much sugar as usual.

So, this is roughly what I did!

Peeled, cored and chopped 2/3 of a standard sized supermarket pineapple into chunks.
Thawed a roughly equal volume of blackberries.
Melted about 40g unsalted butter in a frying pan and added the pineapple. As it started to cook I added 1 tablepoon of brown Light at Heart (or 2 tablespoons light muscovado sugar), a half teaspoon cinnamon and a teaspoon vanilla extract. I then poured on two tablespoons of rum which I mixed in and then flamed. I then turned up the heat and reduced the pan juices to a sticky caramel. The fruit was then cooled.
For the crumble mix, I rubbed 80g unsalted butter into 80g plain flour, 80g whole rolled oats and 40g white Light at Heart (use 80g regular white sugar). I then stirred in 20g desiccated coconut. I think it's important not to make the mixture too fine - leaving a few lumps of butter and some clumps of crumble adds to the texture.
The cooled pineapple was mixed with the blackberries, and 1 tablespoon of cornflour, to thicken any juices. The fruit was put into a deep casserole dish with a 1litre capacity, and the crumble mix was sprinkle evenly on top and pressed down lightly.
The crumble was baked until the top was golden brown and the fruit bubbling. I usually do this at 180C for about 45 minutes, but I started at a much higher temperature with this dish because I was cooking something else in the oven too. It had the first 10 minutes at 220C which didn't seem to do it any harm. It then finished off at 180C, with about 25 minutes cooking overall.

This was a really good combination of flavours - the pineapple, cinnamon, vanilla and hint of rum gave a tropical flavour, and fantastic smell, when added to the coconut in the topping. I'm not sure I'd have recognised the blackberries in a blind tasting but they added another taste dimension and a lovely colour to the dish. Coconut in the crumble topping is definitely an innovation I'll be using again with suitable fruit! Using the Light at Heart sugar in this context was fine too - I didn't notice anything different in the volume, taste or texture of the crumble mix.