We always seem to have a couple of oranges languishing in the fruit bowl and half a tin of pineapple hanging around so, very sensibly, Faith suggested I make an orange and pineapple cake. A girl after my own heart!
A while ago I signed up to receive monthly food boxes from Flavourly and was very excited to find some coconut sugar in it last month. I’ve never baked with coconut sugar before but, after a little googling, I found that you can pretty much do a straight swap between regular sugar and coconut sugar quantity-wise. This was also ginger flavoured coconut sugar – bonus!
So with the combination of the two, my sunshine cake was born….
I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t the prettiest cake! But, what it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in taste. I added some carrots to make a lovely moist sponge and some cream cheese frosting to finish it off. Probably not my best idea as I really suck at making cream cheese frosting. I don’t know why, I just really do! If you have a fool proof recipe for a good cream cheese frosting, please leave me a link in the comments.
Ingredients
250g coconut sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
200ml vegetable oil
300g self raising flour
1 tsp ground ginger
300g grated carrots
100g chopped pineapple, plus extra for decoration
Grated zest 1 orange
Cream cheese frosting – probably best you google/use your own tried and tested recipe – mine wasn’t the best!
What to do
1. Preheat the oven and line an 8 inch round deep cake tin. I prefer to cook mine in one tin then slice in half later, but you could cook it in two halves – you’ll just need to adjust the cooking time. I cook my cake at 170°C as I find cakes bake better in this oven at cooler temps for longer. You may need to change this temperature to suit your oven.
2. Mix together the coconut sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and vegetable oil until they are well combine. I use a stand mixer.
3. Sieve the flour and ground ginger into the wet ingredients and mix together.
4. Stir in the pineapple, carrots and orange zest.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 45 minutes – 1 hour (or however long it takes for your cake to be cooked through). Test it is baked by inserting a skewer – when it comes out clean, the cake is ready.
6. Allow the cake to cool then slice in half (if you baked one deep cake) and fill with cream cheese frosting, leaving enough to cover the top. Decorate with pineapple pieces.
Enjoy in the sunshine!
