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
x