Relax It's Your Birthday Pineapple Stamped Card

I was really pleased when I found this set of pineapple rubber stamps and dies in a local charity shop for £2 - it's a bit quirky and something I would have hesitated to buy, as it's fairly niche - I'm sure there are various designs you can do with pineapples, but most of my stamp sets are more versatile. However, I'm often envious when I see cards people have made with unusual stamps that are perfect for a specific sentiment which is why I decided to add these to my stash.  Pineapples also seem to be really in at the moment!

 

I used two of the three large pineapple stamps - one has the outline of a pineapple on a clear stamp, so you get the pattern in the middle, and the other has a solid bottom so you still see the pattern but the sections of the skin are dark, and on the top half it says 'it's your birthday'.

I stamped both of them with blank ink onto yellow card, repeating the full pineapple once, and then separately stamped the greenery on top with green ink onto white card. I cut it out and stuck that on top of the pineapple.

The 'relax' sentiment is another stamp from this set and the 'best wishes' is from a different set.

I'm sharing this with CASology where they want a 'clean and simple' card with the theme 'juicy'. Clean and simple cards normally have one main image and I have stamped three pineapples, but together they form one image, and there is lots of white space around them.

Slow Cooker Sweet and Sour Chicken

It's Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rooster is about to begin so what better meal to cook for your family or friends than sweet and sour chicken? The great thing about this recipe is that because you make it in a slow cooker, it's really easy. Put it on and forget about it until you are ready to eat - at least if you use microwave pouches of rice like I do, you really don't need to do a lot!

The recipe comes from the Betty Crocker website - which I associate more with cakes than savoury dishes. I don't think it needs the cornstarch you add at the end though as I found most of the liquid had evaporated in the slow cooker by the time it had finished cooking.

To serve 2, you need:
200g tin pineapple, chopped (juice from the tin reserved)
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
half an onion, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
4 skinless boneless chicken thighs, diced
3 tbsp. soy sauce
3 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 red pepper, seeds removed and chopped
1/2 green pepper, seeds removed and chopped
1/4 cup water
rice or noodles to serve    

Put the pineapple, carrots, onion, garlic and ginger in the slow cooker. Top with the chicken.

Mix the pineapple juice, soy sauce and sugar and pour over the chicken.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on high for 2-3 hours. For the last 30 minutes add the pineapple and peppers. Serve with rice or noodles.

 

 

 

 

Crumpet Pizzas

 

I really thought I had blogged about these before as I've made them several times, but can't find any mention on my blog so I'm sharing the idea with you now. It's more of an idea than a recipe; a quick and easy weekend lunch and something that I imagine might be fun to make with children. I usually use normal-sized crumpets but have also tried with Warburton's giant crumpets which work brilliantly!

Lightly toast your crumpets under the grill and spread each one with about 1/2 tsp tomato puree. Top with cheese - either grated or thinly sliced, or a processed cheese slice (eg Kraft). Other toppings are optional - here, I did some with ham and pineapple. Return to the grill until the cheese is bubbling and enjoy!

Spiralized Salmon and Broccoli Balls with Carrot Pineapple Rice

This recipe comes from Ali Maffucci's book Inspiralized, and takes a bit of preparation but the cooking time itself is minimal - and more importantly, it tastes amazing. If you've only spiralized courgette or butternut squash and used it instead of pasta so far, you are really missing out - there are so many ways you can use your spiralizer, but you could also make this recipe even if you don't have one.

I don't want to repeat the entire recipe as I'm sure Ali would appreciate it if you bought the book but I'm going to describe what I did. The recipe consist of three elements - salmon and broccoli balls, which I thought would be like fishcakes minus the potato but actually were quite different; homemade teriyaki sauce; and carrot 'rice' cooked with spring onion and pineapple.

I started by making the salmon balls. Preheat the oven, and pulse some broccoli in a food processor. Add a piece of salmon, some garlic and ginger and onion or shallot and pulse again. Turn the food processor off, and scoop the mixture into balls. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile make the teriyaki sauce by mixing soy sauce, mirin, honey, garlic and ginger.

After the salmon balls have baked for 15 minutes, drizzle over a couple of spoonfuls of the teriyaki sauce and bake for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile spiralize some carrots -you need to choose quite thick ones otherwise it's tricky. I used three carrots; once they are spiralized, wash out the bowl of the food processor and pulse the carrots until you have a rice-like consistency.

In a small pan, heat a little coconut oil and fry some chopped spring onion, garlic and ginger. Add the carrot rice, some chopped pineapple and a little teriyaki sauce and stir fry for a few minutes. Serve the salmon and broccoli balls on top of the carrot. This was a delicious meal and I felt very healthy!

I'm entering this in Spiralizer Saturday, the blog challenge I run for all things spiralized. If you have any good recipes, link them up here!

I'm also sending this to Extra Veg, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

Singapore Sling Bundt Cake

This weekend is the Singapore Grand Prix and when I started thinking about  what I could make for Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I've been running this year, my mind went straight to one thing: Singapore Slings. I discovered the cocktail when I was on holiday in Singapore and had one at the Raffles hotel where the drink was invented; you can read my review here.



Here's the recipe for the cocktail itself, on the back of a notebook I bought in the hotel. Until now when I've made it at home I've left out the Dom Benedictine as it's expensive and you only use a tiny amount (and I don't know any other cocktails it's used in) but this time decided to push the boat out and buy a bottle.

I decided to recreate the flavours of the cocktail in a cake and that the form of a bundt would work best.

I turned to bundt queen Rachel McGrath's website Dolly Bakes and used her 'build a bundt' recipe for the basic mixture to which I could add my own flavours. Click on the link to see her recipe and have a look around her fab site. I did leave out the yogurt from Rachel's recipe as I was going to add something else for the moisture but otherwise I followed her recipe.

I decided to put pineapple in the cake as this is the predominant flavour of the cocktail (as it's the main mixer as you can see from the quantities above). I used fresh pineapple that I had previously chopped and frozen; I reckon it's the equivalent of one small 227g tin once drained or around 200g of fresh pineapple. Make sure it's finely chopped and add to the bundt mixture.

I mixed up a cocktail with all the ingredients apart from the bitters which I didn't have and the pineapple juice, so this was basically neat alcohol. I poured it all into the cake mixture and stirred it in. (This replaces the yogurt in Rachel's recipe).

I greased my bundt tin with Cake Release and baked the bundt for about an hour, by which point it seemed to be cooked when I tested it with a skewer. I left it to cool in the tin and when I went to turn it out... disaster! The top (or bottom, when it's in the tin) of the cake stuck to the tin and a fair bit of it broke off on the way out. I was left with a pretty unappealing top to the cake.

It should have been this shape...

.. and instead it looked like this.

I had already decided I would cover it with a Singapore Sling glaze so once again mixed up the neat cocktail and added a generous dash of pineapple juice for the flavour, but didn't water it down too much. I mixed a spoonful of the cocktail with some icing sugar, adding a little more liquid until I got the right consistency - an icing that I could pour over the cake that would run down the sides but that wasn't too thin.

You can still see how misshapen the top of the cake is, which was a shame, but when I served this at a barbecue to celebrate my engagement in August, I started to apologise for the way the cake looked but was told that it was the taste that mattered and that it tasted great! I had no idea what to expect, having invented this recipe and never tried it before, but it seemed very successful. The cake itself was light and moist and the flavours of the cocktail really came through in the icing with the cake itself tasting predominantly of pineapple but with a little extra something. Now if I make it again I just need to figure out how to get it out of the tin in one piece!

You may also like to check out this Bellini Bundt I made previously.

I'm sending this Singapore Sling bundt cake to Formula 1 Foods as the Grand Prix this weekend is taking place in Singapore.

I'm also sending this to Simply Eggcellent, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen, as his challenge this month is an easy one - cakes (which use eggs).

Pina Colada Cupcakes

I've written before about Sugar and Crumbs, a company which makes flavoured icing sugars and cocoa powders from natural ingredients. I first came across them at a cake show and I think it's a brilliant idea, especially for those flavours which are hard to replicate. So I was excited when they sent me a packet of pina colada icing sugar to try. It costs £1.99 for 250g or £3.49 for 500g which is plenty for a dozen cupcakes. So not something I would buy every day (you have to pay postage as well) but it's a great idea for something a bit different.

I've made pina colada cupcakes once before but this time I used a different recipe from a fun book called Make Bake Cupcake. I didn't use the frosting recipe from the book though. This is what you need to make 12:

190g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
115g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp. rum
125ml milk
85g tinned pineapple, crushed
60g of dessicated coconut to decorate
500g Sugar and Crumbs pina colada flavour icing sugar
250g butter, softened
cocktail umbrellas to decorate

Preheat oven to 180C and line a muffin tin with paper cases - I used yellow ones.

Cream the butter with the sugar then beat in the eggs. Mix in the rum and milk and gradually add the flour along with the baking powder and salt. Finally stir in the pineapple.

Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and bake for 18-20 minutes until cooked. Allow to cool.

Mix the Sugar and Crumbs pina colada flavour with the softened butter for the buttercream. Using a piping bag and star nozzle pipe swirls on top of the cupcakes. Sprinkle over the dessicated coconut to decorate and top with a mini cocktail umbrella.



I'm sending these to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Jane at the Hedgecombers and Karen at Lavender and Lovage as their theme is barbecues.

And I'm sending these to Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer; the theme this month is summertime special.

Thanks to Sugar & Crumbs for sending me the icing sugar to review.

Malaysian Pineapple Cookies

This weekend's Formula 1 Grand Prix is taking place in Malaysia. I thought about making a savoury dish for my challenge Formula 1 Foods - when I went to Kuala Lumpur in 2013 I had a nice chicken and noodle dish. But I wanted to find something sweet, so turned to the internet and came across a website called Rasa Malaysia, with a recipe for  the best ever pineapple cookies. Mine did turn out rather different to the picture though!

For one thing, this recipe gives quantities to make 100, which sounded at least five times more than I wanted! It was difficult to divide the recipe that much though (eg it uses two egg yolks) and I also got a bit confused by the quantity of pineapple needed; two whole pineapples should be 3.5kg, meaning one is 1,750 grams - but after I sliced up one whole pineapple I only had about 800g. But in the end I had a lot of pineapple left over!

I halved the quantity of the dough but found it really didn't go far. My pineapple was still quite moist and not a sticky ball like in the picture, so I needed quite a lot of cookie dough to go around it. So I ended up with about a dozen large cookies when according to the recipe I should have had about 50!



I also found it quite hard to get the pineapple to stay inside as it was so moist and I ended up making a few cookies thumbprint style with the pineapple on top, which worked quite well.

The cookie dough wasn't particularly sweet and had quite a milky flavour, from the condensed milk; it went well with the sweet yet sharp pineapple in the middle but I'm afraid to say I'd rather have a chocolate chip cookie any day! Still, this was an interesting experiment - I enjoy making dishes from different cultures. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who has made this recipe or eaten Malaysian pineapple cookies before!


I'm entering this into Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I host related to the Grand Prix races as this weekend it is taking place in Malaysia.

I'm also sharing this with Tea Time Treats, hosted by Janie at the Hedgecombers and Karen at Lavender and Lovage, as their theme this month is biscuits and cookies.

Pineapple and Coconut Sandcastle Cake

I can never resist new baking equipment and when I saw this sandcastle cake mould from Lakeland, priced at just £7.99, I had to buy it as I knew it would be perfect for summer.

I thought about what flavours I associated with the beach, and decided that fish and chips wouldn't really work in a cake - so summery cocktails were the next best thing. Pineapple and coconut reminds me of cocktails, exotic fruit and even coconut-scented sun tan lotion, so I decided to incorporate these flavours into the cake.

Pineapple and Coconut Sandcastle Cake - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

 You need:

Cake Release spray for greasing the mould

200g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

1 cup pineapple juice

Juice and pineapple from a 227g tin of pineapple rings

275g self raising flour

50g dessicated coconut

for the buttercream

50g butter, softened

100g icing sugar

to decorate:
25g candy melts in any colour (optional)
Cocktail sticks, paper and glue to make flags (optional)
100g golden caster sugar (optional)

I used the Lakeland sandcastle silicone mould for this cake. To decorate, I used the Lakeland seashell silicone icing mould (£6.99) though you could also use Belgian chocolate seashells.

Preheat the oven to 150C. Spray the sandcastle mould with Cake Release or similar.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer then mix in the eggs.

Add the pineapple juice and mix again.

Finely chop the tinned pineapple and add the pineapple and juice from the tin to the cake mixture. Fold in gently.

Fold in the flour and dessicated coconut and make sure all the ingredients are combined.

Stand the sandcastle mould in a large roasting tin and pour the cake mixture into the mould. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.

 Allow to cool in the mould and then turn out onto a cooling rack.

Meanwhile prepare the decorations. To decorate, I used the Lakeland seashell silicone icing mould.

Melt some candy melts - you will only need about 25g - in the microwave or according to pack instructions. You can use any colour but I used a mixture of blue and white. With a teaspoon, spoon a small amount of the melted candy melts into the seashell moulds and place in the fridge for an hour to set. You could use chocolate instead of candy melts, or use ready made Belgian chocolate seashells.

 For the buttercream, cream the softened butter and icing sugar in a bowl. Spoon or pipe the buttercream onto the turrets of the sandcastle, reserving a little to stick the icing seashells onto the cake.

Make flags by cutting out a diamond shape from a piece of coloured paper and folding in half around a cocktail stick. Use a little glue to secure.

Place the cake on a cake board and decorate the sandcastle with flags and seashells. Sprinkle golden caster sugar around the cake to ressemble sand. You can really taste the coconut and the pineapple in this cake and it's perfect for summer.

I'm sending this to the Alphabakes challenge, which I am hosting this month, as the letter I have chosen is P.