Pineapple cake with whipped pineapple cream
Like a pineapple trifle barely holding together in cake form, with pineapple curd, and pineapple whipped cream (Passover friendly!) + two cool kitchen-related things
The cool kitchen things:
First, I love the creativity and kitchen tips of Elly Curshen (@ellypear on Instagram), and today I learned a way of preserving feta cheese that I’d never known of and can now start buying feta again because for some reason I never use it up fast enough before it goes moldy. Her method: 100g of sea salt : 1L of boiled water and put it into a jar and shake to dissolve the salt. Cool, add your feta, and it’ll keep for 3 weeks. Rinse cheese before using. You can always submerge your feta in olive oil, but I never have enough for the sole purpose of cheese storage.
Second, this chainmail scrubber from Smithey is incredible. It’s $20, but it will probably last a lifetime and I just used it to get some baked-on sludge off of my cast iron pan that has probably been there since I bought it at Alameda flea market four years ago. Here’s an $8 one from Amazon that looks identical. It also makes a great fidget tool, and a 1970’s disco hat for your cat.
This week’s recipe came about because I’ve been on a fresh pineapple kick, and when I realized Passover was coming up, I started thinking about ways to incorporate it into an almond cake I’ve been working on, and looked for ways to add more layers of pineapple flavor. There’s so many variations of chocolate cake for Passover too, so I thought I’d go in a fruity direction (and next week I have some gorgeous chocolate things coming).
There’s a single pineapple-almond cake layer, a pineapple curd, and pineapple whipped cream which I also made with fresh pineapple that I cooked down to reduce the juices and concentrate the flavor.
The cake layer evolved from a traditional Galician Tarta de Santiago—an all-almond flour cake flavored with citrus zest, leavened only with whipped eggs and yolks—to this ultra-pineapple-y, three-component cake that also happens to work for people observing Passover (there’s no chemical leavening). It’s a soft, plush dessert and all of the components can be made ahead with fresh or canned pineapple, with instructions for both options. I cut the pineapple into small chunks so that the heat from baking would neutralize the enzyme in pineapple that breaks down protein and to keep it from settling to the bottom of the cake, but kept it just big enough to discern pieces in the cake. I also added some GF flour blend due to the extra moisture from the pineapple which makes the cake layer a bit more…plush is the word I keep thinking of. The whole cake is just very plush and trifle-y.
You could easily skip the curd; you’ll have a fantastic cake that’s pretty quick to put together if you just stick to the cake and whipped cream layers.
Note 1: fresh pineapple has an enzyme in it called bromelain which breaks down protein; it’s the main ingredient in many meat tenderizers and it will literally dissolve the connective tissue in a steak if left to marinate long enough. If you are decorating the cake with fresh pineapple as I did in the photo, make sure to do it within an hour of serving time, otherwise it will eat its way through the cream. The pineapple in the cake batter is cut small and baked long enough to neutralize the enzyme.
Note 2: the recipes call for fresh pineapple, although you can use canned. If using canned, you’ll need approximately two and a half 15-ounce cans, and you’ll have a little left over.
Note 3: unless you are a pro at discerning a dead-ripe pineapple, it’s not a bad idea to buy it pre-cut. You want the deepest yellow that has a bit of translucency to it; it will be at peak of flavor and sweetness. Don’t use if it’s pale yellow and opaque.
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