Pineapple cake with lime soured cream frosting

Firstly appologise for the photo! This cake was made for my Grandma's birthday on Saturday in a bit of a rush - and everyone was keen to tuck in as soon as it was finished.

I loved the sound of this cake, fresh, moist and with a tartness that suits spring. It should have had lime zest on the top, but one of the bunnies got into my carrier bag and was away with the second lime!

The recipe for this cake comes from Gizzi's Kitchen Magic This book is fast becoming my new kitchen bible. Not nessisarily for baking things, but for general cooking its fantastic. It goes right back to basics, showing you how to make simple sauces like hollandaise, gravy and mayonnaise, and then how to vary those sauces to make something a bit moe interesting. Recipes are easy to follow, well tested, and most importantly, photographed. They're also appetising and fresh, something I really rate. I'm quite experienced in the kitchen, but I still find the quality of these recipes second to none.

Anyway, back to the cake in hand. I messed up a bit by completely forgetting to put the pineapple in and had to take it out the oven after 5 mins to add it in! This is likely to have made it a bit more solid and less light and fluffy as obviously I let the air out of it. Despite this is was still a lovely, light cake, and very moist. I was dissapointed that I couldn't taste the lime in it at all, maybe the second lime zest would have made all the difference! I also found the recipe made far too much frosting, I think you could comfortably knock 1/3 off the quantities here and still have enough.

7/10

Recipe

200g butter at room temperature
200g light muscavado sugar
4 large eggs
200g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
225g tin of crushed prineapple or finely chopped pineapple chunks
zest and juice of one lime

frosting:
200ml soured cream
juice and zest of 1 lime
100g icing sugar
200ml double cream

• Heat oven to 170C
• Line a 20cm cake tin
• Put the butter and sugar in a mixing bowland beat together until pale and fluffy
• Add the eggs one at a time and mix in
• Sift over the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and mixed spice and stir in using a metal spoon
• Finally stir in the pineapple, vanilla and lime juice and zest
• Pour into the tin and bake for around 30minutes, until a skewer comes out clean
• Leave to cool in the tin (stood on a cooling rack to avoid a soggy bottom!) for 15 minutes then transfer directly onto the cooling rack
• When completely cool make the frosting by whipping the double cream until stiff.
• In another bowl mix together the soured cream, lime zest and juice and sieved icing sugar. 
• Fold the cream into the soured cream mixture gently
• Top the cake with the icing, and grate some lime zest over to decorate.