Tropical Fruit Cake

My niece Katrina discovered this beautiful recipe and sent this photograph to the Pineapple Princesses. Thanks Kat it looks amazing! Anne.

“It’s supposed to be like a hummingbird cake, the banana was stronger than the pineapple in the cake, but I liked the fresh pineapple on top. The icing is cream cheese with mango. I’ll defini be doing that again!

I cut back sugar to 80g brown and 50g white sugar. I think the cake was still sweet enough but may have been slightly less moist/ faster cooking. Still a very moist cake” Kat.

Sweet, Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, London 2017

Tropical fruit cake

Serves 8

“This is an exceptionally moist cake – almost unusually so, with its bounty of pineapple and banana and the addition of oil. It’s known as a ‘hummingbird cake’ in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and is traditionally iced with a plain cream cheese icing but we’ve added mango puree here. It’s not that the cake needs any help - you can eat it without any icing at all, if you like – but we love the chrome yellow colour it brings to the cake and the way it compliments the tropical fruits inside. Piled high with fresh fruit on top this is an unexpectedly refreshing cake.” The authors.

1 medium pineapple, peeled and core removed. 300g of the flesh should be cut unto 3–4cm chunks for the cake, 50g of the flesh should be cut into 2–3cm chunks for the garnish (drained, canned pineapple is a fine alternative to fresh); 2 large eggs; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 100g soft light brown sugar; 100g caster sugar; 160ml sunflower oil; 2 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed (150g); 45g desiccated coconut; 225g plain flour; 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda; ½ tsp ground cinnamon; ½ tsp ground ginger; ½ tsp ground cardamom; ½ tsp salt

Icing: ¼ of a large ripe mango, peeled and roughly chopped (50g); 65g unsalted butter, at room temperature; 100g cream cheese; 75g icing sugar, sifted

To garnish: ½ banana, cut into roughly 1cm pieces (50g); ½ of a large ripe mango, flesh cut into long, thin strips (70g); 50g pineapple flesh (see above); scooped out seeds of 1 passionfruit; 20g flaked coconut

1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C Fan/Gas Mark 6. Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm round springform tin with baking parchment and set aside.

2  Place 300g of pineapple flesh in a food processor and use the pulse button to crush the fruit, it should be finely chopped but not become a puree. If starting with fresh pineapple, tip the finely chopped flesh into a medium saucepan and place ver a medium heat. Bring to a simmer, cook for 4-5 minutes (taking care that it does not boil vigorously as this will cause too much of the liquid to evaporate, then transfer to a large mixing bowl (large enough to mix the whole cake in later) to cool. If you are starting with canned pineapple you can skip this boiling stage.

3 Place the eggs, vanilla, soft brown sugar and caster sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer with the mixer attachment in place. Whisk together for about 3 minutes, until creamy, then, with the machine on a medium speed, pour in the oil in a slow and steady stream until combined. Add this to the bowl of cooled pineapple along with the mashed bananas and desiccated coconut. Stir to combine.

4 Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt together into the wet mix and use a large spatula to fold until just combined. Pour into the cake tin and bake for about 40 minutes, until nicely browned. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas Mark 4 and continue to cook for 10-15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

5 To make the icing: place the mango flesh in the small bowl of a food processor and blitz to form a fine purée. Tip out into a small bowl and set aside. Add the butter and cream cheese to the food processor – there is no need to wash the bowl – and process until smooth. Add the icing sugar, pulse to combine, then add the mango purée. Pulse again until evenly mixed and scrape into a bowl. Keep in the fridge, covered, for at least 2 hours – it needs time to thicken – before icing the cake.

6 When ready to serve, use a small spatula or knife to spread a thick layer of the mango icing all over the top and sides of the cake. Place all the fruit for garnish in a small bowl, mix gently, then spoon it into the centre of the cake, you want it to be piled up in the middle, rather than spread evenly over the top. Finish by pressing the flaked coconut into just the sides of the cake and serve.