Pineapple, Coriander and Coconut Bar Cake

      The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

     When I learnt that we are supposed to make either a sweet or a savoury loaf this month, I was more than happy. Since I got my “Zumbo” book in January, I got absolutely addicted to it, especially to the chapter dedicated to “Gateaux de voyage”– the bar cakes, or the loaves, or whatever you want to call them. I started to cook a new cake before we finished a previous one; and despite the fact that there are posts only about two of them in the blog – Lavender Up and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes – believe me, I have cooked much more from the book!

      I felt like making another amazing loaf from Zumbo collection for the challenge but there were two major problems. First, Lisa stated that it shouldn’t take us more than an hour and a half to prepare the cake and bake it through. All cakes from Zumbo, however, have a lot of  “surprise” or hidden elements (like gel, caramel or custard) which, of course, need extra time to prepare. The second problem was, I realized that I won’t be able to share the recipe from the book – there are restrictions on copying the material without the publisher’s permission.

     I found the solution when I remembered that one of the members of our Daring Kitchen –  Lorraine Elliott from notquitenigella.com had once attended a masterclass with Adriano Zumbo where they cooked quite a simple “gateau de voyage” – pineapple and coriander bar cake. It was a perfect opportunity to test the recipe in my kitchen!

     The loaf was really quick and easy to make and turned out to be not as sweet as I expected (well, more like some sort of a bread, really!). I have put some pineapple rings at the bottom of the tin – just for presentation, and increased the amount of pineapple pieces in the cake itself. I have also added shopped cilantro stems to the batter – their freshness beautifully counterbalanced the tanginess of coriander powder and sweetness of shredded coconut. In general, it was more than a nice loaf and I am happy that I managed to try yet another recipe from Adriano Zumbo – at the Daring Kitchen this time!

Recipe adapted from the original one by Adriano Zumbo


Ingredients:
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup shredded coconut
3 pineapple rings

125 gm butter
100 gm icing sugar
50 gm inverted sugar
150 gm whole eggs
100 gm grated coconut
75 gm coconut milk powder
7 gm ground coriander
150 gm milk
200 gm plain flour
5 gm baking powder
2 tbsp coriander stems, chopped
150 gm tinned pineapple, cut into cubes


Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a loaf pan with melted butter, dust with coconut. Arrange pineapple rings on the bottom.
2. Beat the butter until soft and smooth. Add icing sugar and inverted sugar and beat for a few more minutes. Add eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the coconut, coconut milk powder and ground coriander. Add milk and beat till smooth.
3. Sift flour together with the baking powder and add to the batter. Fold in the pineapple cubes and chopped coriander stems. Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until the toothpick inserted in the loaf comes just a little moist.
4. Allow the cake to cool in the tin, and then invert it on a serving plate.


Notes:

1. To make inverted sugar at home, combine castor sugar with the same amount of water, stir over medium heat till the sugar dissolves, bring to boil, remove from heat and add some citric acid. Allow to cool before using for the cake.
2. If you want this bread to be sweeter, moisten the warm cake with the pineapple syrup from the tin.