Fresh Pineapple Spelt Cake with a Pineapple Frosting (lower fat and sugar)

This fresh pineapple and poppy seed spelt cake was first published in May 2016 on my original blog, The Culinary Jumble. The recipe has been altered slightly and the images are new. 

As regular readers know, I had a blog before this one, called the Culinary Jumble. When I began using spelt more often in baking, and realizing there was no real discernible difference between regular flour and spelt flour, I decided to niche down a little and focus on baking with spelt. And the new blog was born.

I am slowly moving my recipes over from The Culinary Jumble and adapting them to use spelt flour. All recipes are tried and tested with the flour I originally made the recipes with, plus spelt. This means that for most of my recipes, spelt, regular or a gluten free blended flour can be used interchangeably. 

This time, the makeover is this fresh pineapple and poppy seed spelt cake. The original recipe had chia seeds, but this time, I had some poppy seeds I wanted to use up. The pineapple I used this time around was fresh, but you could easily used tinned. I also chose coconut sugar, but you could use any sugar you like.

Using pineapple gives the cake a slight tang and the Greek yoghurt helps to keep the fat content down while at the same time adding moisture. The pineapple is evident, but it isn’t over-powering.

The cake is low fat and sugar, but this changes a little if you add my pineapple frosting (which is of course, optional). Due to less sugar and fat, the cake is slightly denser than regular cake. I also find that using Greek yoghurt changes the texture of cakes somewhat. It’s still beautifully delicious, but it’s good to be aware so that you are not disappointed when your sponge is not the pound cake texture you were perhaps expecting. 

If you like this recipe, why not check out the other spelt cakes I have in my collection?

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Fresh Pineapple Spelt Cake with a Pineapple Frosting (lower fat and sugar)

Ingredients

Cake:

• 50g (¼ cup) sugar (see note 1)
• 30g (2 tbsp) butter (softened)
• 2 medium eggs
• 100g (½ cup) pineapple (see note 2)
• 50ml (3 tbsp + 2 tsp) vegetable oil
• 50g (¼ cup) Greek yoghurt
• 2 tablespoons pineapple juice
• 200g (1 cups + ¼ cup) flour (see note 3)
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate (baking soda)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Frosting:

• 50g pineapple
• icing sugar

Instructions

Cake:

• Pre-heat the oven to 175°C (350°F) and grease your desired pan (I have used both a 9 x 5 loaf tin and 1 liter bundt).
• If using fresh or sliced pineapple, blitz it in a food processor until it is crushed. Remove and set aside.
• Using either a food processor or whisk, cream the butter and sugar and then add in the eggs, one at a time.
• Add the crushed pineapple, pineapple juice, oil and yoghurt and continue to whisk until smooth.
• Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla sugar, and poppy seeds together and then add to the wet ingredients, stirring until just combinedl.
• Pour into the prepared tin and bake for around 30-40 minutes (depending on which pan you use) until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Start checking from about 30 minutes, and if using a bundt tin, you may need to cover the top to prevent it browning too much.
• Leave in the tin for a while, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Frosting:

• Crush your pineapple (if it's not already done) and add just as much icing sugar as needed to create a thick paste. You will have lovely thick bits of pineapple, which looks so pretty! Slather it over your cake and enjoy!

Notes

Disclaimer: I use decimal measurements in my recipes. To help my American readers, I've used online sources to convert to imperial (cups) but these have not been verified by myself and accuracy can therefore not be guaranteed.

1. I have used both brown and coconut sugar to make this cake (the images show a cake made with coconut sugar). However, you could also use granulated sugar.
2. I used fresh pineapple in my cake, but have used tinned in the past. If your pineapple isn't crushed already, you will need to do this for both the cake and the frosting.
3. I've used both a gluten free blend and spelt flour to make this cake. You could also use regular flour. You don't need to amend the measurements, just use the amounts stated.