Pineapple Chiffon Cake with Spiced Pineapples

Happy Easter !!

I did want this post to be done a couple of days early but Easter seems a good enough reason for this cake recipe to go through. I completed two years of blogging this month and if someone told me two years back that this would happen, I would never believe it! Now that I am here, I would just love to say THANK YOU to everyone. 

While I try out my mamma's recipes, she tries some of mine too! My Pappa  religiously clicks away pictures of recipes from newspapers and magazines for me and my sister believes that my blog will make it big some day! My cousins - Vinitha and Neenu - one who diligently gives me ideas and other who meticulously reads them and  questions. My mother in law is the first one to share my recipes on facebook and my bro - in- law and co sister who always read my write ups and provide their comments. My love to all my friends, fellow bloggers and friends who are the reason why I am still in this blogging space and enjoy being here. And to Shibin, well this is our blog so technically it is Thank you from both of us to all of you!

On to my recipe - I wanted to make a pineapple cake and some research led me to this pineapple chiffon cake. So, the next question - what exactly is a chiffon cake? Chiffon cake is simply made with vegetable oil and fluffed up by beating the egg white to form peaks - sort of a cross between a sponge cake and oil cake. With a little bit of tweaking and addition of spiced pineapples - I had my pineapple chiffon cake with spiced pineapples.

Ingredients

For the cake -

1. All purpose flour - 2 cups
2. Egg - 4 
3. Sugar - 1 cup + 4 tbsp
4. Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
5. Canned pineapple slices with syrup - 450 gms ( about 10 pineapple slices)
6. Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp
7. Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
8. Star anise - 2
9. Cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp
10. Whipping cream - 2 cups
11. Powdered sugar - 3 tbsp
12. Water - 4 tbsp
13. Ghee/ Clarified butter - 1 tbsp
14. Salt - 1 pinch

Method

Spiced caramelised pineapples

• Heat a frying pan and add 4 tbsp of sugar to it. Let it melt, brown and caramelise. Add 4 tbsp of water to it - initially it would form lumps but let it boil and it would form a thick syrup. 
• Reduce the flame and add sliced pineapple to this along with the star anise and cinnamon powder.  Let it caramelise into a beautiful golden yellow. Flip and move around so that it caramelises uniformly on medium flame. Once done, add a tablespoon of ghee and let it caramelise for another 2 minutes. Switch off and let it cool.

Chiffon cake

• Separate the egg yolks and the egg whites. Beat the egg white stiff.
• Sieve together the flour, baking powder, salt and set aside.
• Bring together the wet ingredients - vegetable oil, egg yolks, 1/2 a cup of pineapple syrup from the canned pineapples and vanilla essence. Add the sugar and using a spatula combine them well.
• Add the flour in batches incorporating them well into the wet ingredients.
• Finally, add the beaten egg whites and fold them in together.
• Pre-heat the oven to 200 degree centigrade and bake the cake for 35 to 45 minutes or till a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Transfer to a cooling tray and let it cool.

Whipping Cream

• Keep a bowl and whisk in the fridge for 20 minutes.
• Add the whipping cream, 1/4 tsp essence and vanilla essence into the bowl and whisk on high speed for 6 to 8 minutes till it forms peak stiffs.
• Refrigerate it until it is time to use.

Combining and decorating

• Slice the cake into two layers. Level the cake by slicing off any uneven surface. 
• Prick the cake randomly with a pin and drizzle 1/2 a cup of pineapple syrup for making the layers moist.
• For the two layer cake, use the layer sliced off from the top as the bottom layer while frosting and keep the bottom of the cake inverted at the top for the top layer. This is done to get a level surface on top.
• Keep one layer on a rotating cake stand. Slather a generous amount of whipped cream on this layer. Chop five of the spiced pineapple slices and spread this on the whipped cream. Spread a little bit more of whipping cream to hold it together.
• Keep the bottom of the cake inverted on the top of this. Press it gently.
• Slather whipping cream on the top of the cake and also on the sides. Decorate the top of the cake with spiced pineapples. Pipe designs on the top for the final touch!

Things to note - 

1. Let the cake cool before starting the frosting.
2.  If you are not into decorating - you could simply have the layers slathered with whipping cream and topped with pineapple leaving the edges bare and no piping as well.
3. If you are using whipping cream for the first time - do not panic! You will find that it has the consistency of nothing but cream first and as you beat it it thickens up and forms peaks. Over beating may result in curdling up.