WE'VE MOVED

Hello!

Thank you for the amazing 8 years here at A Baked Creation, we can't thank you enough for the memories! But we've decided to move over to a new site - Sincerely, Syl. Please join us there for future posts on all the things you loved here!

Sincerely,
Syl
Showing posts with label pineapple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pineapple. Show all posts

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Old-Fashioned Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Hello! What is your dad doing today? Mine is out  on the green with his friends. Since he's such an independent guy, my mother and I made him a cake that he would enjoy after a round of golf.

Old-Fashioned Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
Recipe from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe
(Makes one 9-inch cake, or in my case, two 6-inch cakes)

1 pineapple
1 3/4 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of water
1 3/4 sticks of unsalted butter
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  1. Using a serrated knife, peel, halve, and core the pineapple. Cut them into 1/4-inch-thick slices. You don't have to keep them in rings, the cookbook recommends cutting the rings in half or smaller.
  2. Put 3/4 cup of sugar in a medium saucepan. Add water and gently swirl to moisten the sugar. Place the pan over high heat and let it boil. Do not disturb it! The syrup will start boil and thicken, changing in color as it caramelizes.
  3. When the caramel is medium golden brown, turn down the heat and stir in 3/4 stick of unsalted butter. Carefully add the pineapple and stir until it is coated with the caramel.
  4. Using a fork/spatula/chopstick, transfer the pineapple to your cake pan. I didn't butter the cake pan, but you can if you like.
  5. Preheat the oven to 350F.
  6. In my case, I placed one ring at the bottom of the 6-inch cake pan and poured the remaining caramel in. 
  7. Using a stand mixer, whisk the eggs and egg yolks together. Slowly whisk in the 1 cup of sugar, the vanilla extract, and 1 stick of butter.
  8. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Using a rubber spatula, fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture until combined.
  9. Pour the batter evenly over the pineapple in the cake pan. Smooth the top out with a spatula.
  10. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the top is golden brown. You can let the cake cool in the pan, or be impatient like me and carefully invert it onto a plate. Enjoy!
The cake tastes so good right out of the oven. Sure, it will still taste delicious after a cool down, but I just love the mix of pineapple juice with warm caramel soaking into the cake.
A cake for my dad, a cake for Howard's dad. A happy father's day indeed.

Friday, January 14, 2011

The Cupcakery


The Cupcakery
at Monte Carlo
9680 South Eastern Avenue #100
Las Vegas, NV 89123
(702) 207-2253

Surely you didn't think I'd go to Las Vegas and not visit a cupcake shop? Well I did. Twice. The first day I went it wasn't open, that was disappointing as business hours weren't posted on the screen. But we didn't give up and came back on our last day to see the cases filled with cupcakes:


Lots of different flavours to choose from, let's take a closer look!


Here were some of my top contenders, Strawberry Shortcake: strawberry cake with heavy cream and strawberry buttercream.


The Coco Frauline that looks like a giant Ferrero Rocher is a devil's food cake with German chocolate filling, iced with ganache and covered with chopped pecans.


Always present, Southern Belle: red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.


Peanutbutter Jammer: peanut butter cake with grape jelly filling and peanut butter topping.


The Julius: orange and pineapple cake with orange buttercream. Well, I haven't seen this one around before!


The Julius it is!


The cupcake smelled good, just like an orange smoothie from... well Orange Julius! The cake was moist and while I didn't find orange chunks, I did find the pineapple ones. The buttercream was smooth and worked very well with the cake. Notice that there's edible disco dust on top, everything is flashier in Vegas!