Quick Fix Pineapple Upside-Down Pudding

This is the third "quick-fix" pudding I'm posting, and it's likely not to be the last! I had a bit of pineapple that needed using up, and a big craving for some pudding, so decided to experiment with the Quick Fix Chocolate Pudding recipe to make a different variation.

Not the most photogenic pud, but extremely tasty!

The findings of this experiment - that it's incredibly dangerous to know how to make something so tasty in less than 10 minutes!! I think I actually prefer this one to the chocolate version.

A note on cooking times: I'm afraid that as this is a microwave pud, and as all microwaves are different you may find that puddings take a little more or a little less time to cook in your microwave. You'll know it ready because it will come away from the sides of the bowl slights and will be set but still sticky to touch.

Ingredients:
Butter, for greasing.
3 tbsp runny honey (even better if it's in a squeezy bottle!)
8 - 10 chunks of pineapple
50g margarine
50g soft light brown sugar
1 medium egg
50g self-raising flour
2tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla extract

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 3 minutes
Serves: 4

1. Grease a microwavable pyrex bowl, then drizzle the honey around the sides and the bottom. Cut the pineapple into bite-sized pieces, then place these into the bottom of the bowl.
2. In another bowl, add the margarine, sugar, egg, flour and milk and vanilla extract and beat together until combined into a smooth, slightly runny batter.
3. Carefully pour the pudding batter over the pineapple and honey, then put in the microwave on a medium heat for 3 minutes. Allow to rest for at least a minute until turning out onto a serving plate.
4. Best served when still warm, with a little vanilla ice-cream! Hope you like it :-)

Happy Thoughts
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Pineapple and Mango Ice Cream

Welcome to the latest feature of the blog: Ice-Cream Sundays! I've been toying with this idea for a while, and figured that since it's the New Year, I might as well just give it a go! So, even though The Princess and the Cake is and will always be a baking blog, I've decided to have a little dabble in ice-cream making, and I'll be posting those ice-cream recipes here, you guessed it, on a Sunday! For now, as I'm new to ice-cream making and don't have many recipes in my repertoire (yet) this will be a monthly feature, posted on the last Sunday of every month. Maybe in the future this will increase - who knows!

What I do know, however, is that it may come across as a silly idea to launch an ice-cream feature in a month I've dedicated to healthier-than-usual recipes. Well, I'm a bit silly - but I also came up with a healthy ice-cream recipe, so we're still detoxing!

I do, however, have a confession to make. This isn't actually an ice cream - but it does have the same texture and is so tasty you'd never know you were eating a fat free, sugar-free* alternative to ice-cream!
*Sugar-free except for the sugars that occur naturally in fruit, obviously!

I invented this recipe sort of by accident during a crohns flare-up. I try not to go on about my crohns, and I'm not going to start now, so to cut a long story short I found myself re-evaluating the foods I ate, and looking for "east-to-digest" foods. Mango and pineapple came up in a list of the more easily digested fruits, so I went out and bought a load. And then realised it was fresh fruit and there was no way I'd be able to eat it all before it went off so I ended up cutting it into chunks and freezing it, and then just getting a bit out and allowing it to defrost whenever I fancied eating some. Then one evening I decided to stick some in the blender to see what happened, and what happened was yummy!

Below is enough for a one person serving, but you could make as much as you like by sticking to the 60:40 pineapple/mango ratio. Please note that this "ice-cream" cannot be re-frozen once it's blended, so you might as well eat it up all at once :-)

Ingredients:
60g fresh pineapple
40g fresh, ripe mango

Prep time: 40 minutes
Serves: 1

1. Cut the pineapple and mango into bite-sized chunks, place in and airtight container and freeze for 30 minutes,
2. Remove from the freezer and put into the blender. Pulse until smooth (around 5-10 minutes)
3. Serve and smile - it's actually good for you!

Happy Thoughts
x

Also Cute and Fluffy!

Disney Classic # 41 - Lilo and Stitch

When it came to thinking of a cake for Lilo and Stitch, pineapple upside-down cake just seemed to make sense. (Although I should mention that even though this choice seems fairly obvious, a friend did have to make the hint before I picked up on it!) I'd decided quite early on that rather than baking any old upside-down cake, I'd do my best to Stitch-ify the design on top of the cake. It's just a shame they don't make blue pineapples...

I looked through all of my cookbooks for a pineapple upside down pudding recipe to no avail (which seemed strange, I thought people loved pineapple upside down pudding!!) so I ended up using a recipe a found here. I found the image to use as a template for my Stitch-side-up pattern here.

Prep time: 50 minutes
Cook time: 35-40 minutes
Makes 12 slices

(Note: the prep time here is so high because it took a while to cut the cherries and pineapple rings to the correct size and to place them all to look like Stitch's face. If you go for a more traditional pineapple-upside-down cake design using whole rings and whole cherries the prep time would probably only be 15-20 mins)
Ingredients:

200g margarine
200g golden caster sugar
Small tin of pineapple rings drained from their juice (reserve 2tbsp of the juice)
Half a pot of glace cherries
150g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla extract
1tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp lemon juice
3 eggs

1. Preheat to oven to gas mark 4. Place your template picture onto the bottom on a 9" loose bottomed cake tin, and place a layer of grease-proof paper over that.
2. Beat together 50g of margarine with 50g of sugar and spread this evenly over the bottom and sides of the cake tin, making sure you can still see the template design below.)
3. Slice the cherries into thin strips, and cut the pineapple slices into small chunks. Use the cherry slices as the outline of your design, and use the pineapple chunks to fill the gaps.
4. Place the remaining ingredients (including the 2tbsp of reserved pineapple juice) into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until just combined. Carefully spoon the mixture on top of the pineapple and smooth with the back of a spoon. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until springy to touch or a skewer comes out clean.
5. Remove from the oven but leave to stand in the tin for 5 minutes, before carefully turning out onto a serving plate.
6. Get your friends to admire your masterpiece, then cut into slices and serve warm!

Next time we're watching Treasure Planet, and I'll be making some yummy steam-punk inspired cupcakes!

Happy Thoughts
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