Pineapple Loaf Cake with Citrus Frosting

Over the past couple of months I have become an addicted to The Great British Bake Off. I love the fact that people are so enthusiastic about baking now and I think that I felt more nervous when pavlovas were brought out and creme brulees were dropped than I did for the Olympic athletes this summer. That's the thing about cooking. Until it comes out of the oven and you taste it you never really know how it's going to turn out!

So when I saw that you could apply to be on the next series I got very excited. Until I realised that actually all I had ever really baked were fairy cakes and biscuits and the odd birthday cake! So I've decided to be a little more adventurous with my cooking so that one day I might actually get to meet Mary Berry.

With that in mind I decided to try out this tropical sponge cake flavoured with pineapple and lemon icing. The result was delicious! The flavour was delicate and the sugar in the recipe counteracted any acidity from the pineapple. I love this pineapple loaf cake recipe and hope you will too.

Ingredients

225g self raising flour

225g caster sugar

225g butter

4 eggs

1 small can of pineapple rings

2 tbsps pineapple juice (reserved from the can)

For the icing:
1/2 tub full fat cream cheese
icing sugar
1/2 lemon


Mix the flour, sugar, butter and eggs together then add in 2 tbsp of pineapple juice and blend it in.

Chop the pineapple rings up into chunks and stir gently into the the mixture.

Place the mixture in a loaf tin and bake in an oven for approx 1 hour at 180c

Meanwhile make up the icing by mixing icing sugar into the cream cheese (until it is sweet enough to your taste) and adding a squeeze of lemon.

When the cake has cooled ice the top of the cake and sprinkle with grated lemon zest.