Easy Flavored Angel Food Cake or Cupcakes?

Easy Flavored Angel Food Cake

It is a great idea to keep a few 8 ounce cans of crushed pineapple in the pantry for anytime one might want to bake a moist carrot cake or this flavorful angel food cake. I have substituted crushed strawberries in this recipe when my nephew requested a "strawberry" cake and I did not wish to use food coloring.

1 box angel food cake mix
1 8 ounce can crushed pineapple in its own juice
2 tablespoons lemon juice or water
1/4 cup water

Mix all ingredients, beat at medium speed for one minute, and place into angel food cake pan, do not over mix, use a timer.

Bake in preheated 350 F oven for 45 minutes, do not under bake. Turn cake upside down in pan until it cools. Using a knife, carefully cut around the cake so that it can be removed from the pan in one piece.

If you wish you can frost this cake when it has completely cooled. A fat-free frosting that we like on this cake is very hard to find, but one can order it from General Mills. It is called Betty Crocker Home Style Fluffy White Frosting Mix. The frosting has egg whites in it and the box says it may contain milk ingredients.

Here is the cake without frosting, kind of like cotton candy!



The link to the frosted cake with details as what one can do with the frosting is at http://preciouscooking.blogspot.com/2014/04/pineapple-lemon-raspberry-surprise-cake.html

For the chocolate lovers out there, the angel food cake box should have some directions for making this into a chocolate angle food cake.

Watermelon Cake?

I saw a recipe where they cut the rind completely off a large piece of watermelon the size of a cake and frost it with homemade whipping cream and berries!

No bake is a wonderful idea -- the cake is an alternative to my frosted angel food cake as there is no cake in the watermelon cake, the inside is pure watermelon.

It looks wonderful, but I think I would prefer a nonfat frosting, like Betty Crocker's Fluffy Frosting, which is composed of primarily egg white and sugar. It is a light and fluffy frosting.

The white frosting is decorated with blueberries and raspberries for a red, white, and blue, July 4th design!

Details on how to cut at http://www.isavea2z.com/no-bake-watermelon-cake-recipe/

I wonder how this cake would be half watermelon on the bottom and half angel food, for a really high cake!

Pineapple, Lemon, Raspberry, Surprise Cake

I received a surprise from my beautiful niece Julie who lives in Texas. She sent me a thank you bouquet of flowers. Since it remains cold in Cleveland, Ohio, and we might have a few lingering snow flurries, the flowers are a most welcome sign of "life" after winter.

The flowers look gorgeous on the table. I doubt if Julie knew that we had our 46th wedding anniversary a week ago, but we did not have a cake. The colors of the flowers in this beautiful bouquet are the inspiration for this pineapple, lemon, raspberry, surprise angel food cake!

But the question is why did I add the word "surprise" in the name of this Pineapple, Lemon, Raspberry "Surprise" cake?

One can see the raspberries on the outside of the cake and if one cuts into the cake, there is a layer of fluffy frosting with a few raspberries as a "surprise." I had cut into, but not through the unfrosted, cooled cake and placed some frosting and a raspberry surprise in what I determined would be a generous piece of angel food cake. I did not cut completely through the cake, I went around the outside of the cake with a knife, without cutting the cake completely into two layers as this particular angel food cake is very delicate and crumbly.

The cake was made with a box of angel food cake mix, but crushed pineapple was added in lieu of the 1 1/4 cups water indicated in the directions for preparing the cake. In addition, because I love the aroma of lemon, I added 3 tablespoons of lemon juice to the cake and to the frosting.

The frosting is Betty Crocker Fluffy Frosting, which contains no fat. Since I had a large can of crushed pineapple, I had pineapple left from making the cake batter, which only required the 1 1/4 cups.

The Betty Crocker Fluffy Frosting mix is to be mixed with 1/2 cup boiling water. Instead of water I used 3 tablespoons of lemon juice plus some of the remaining crushed pineapple to bring the liquid portion to 1/2 cup and heated it to boiling in the microwave.

I beat the frosting for the required 30 seconds on low and 5-7 minutes on high, and stiff peaks formed at about 6 minutes. It was amazing that the frosting turned from a bit of yellow from the pineapple to almost a pure white.

I frosted the cake quickly as want this cake to look like a fresh, homemade cake, it need not be perfect and the frosting is delicious!

My husband suggested I turn this into a pina colada angel food cake by adding coconut to the frosted cake, but I may try this another time!

Wish I could share this wonderful and very easy-to-make, tasty angel food cake with my Texas family!
I wish I could drop it off at their door!

Please note: any crushed fruit plus liquid can be added to the batter of an angel food cake in lieu of the water indicated in the directions. When my nephew said his favorite cake was "strawberry," I substituted fresh strawberry puree in the cake. I had made the strawberry puree from fresh berries in my blender and the baked cake retained a light pink color.

If my niece has room in her new garden, I can imagine planting a real lemon tree in the backyard!

Love to Julie for inspiring me to bake a cake today for my upcoming cookbook! How I wish I could send a piece over to my great-niece, Emma Louise! I will be working on creating the healthiest cupcakes for Emma, a true cupcake lover.

You can bet that Emma's cupcakes will always have a "surprise" inside!

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

Wow, what a winter! My husband keeps reminding me of what the weather is like in Hawaii, thus, I think I better come up with food to warm us up today and give us a bit of a feeling like   .  .   . catching a wave?

The photos of Hawaii look so heavenly, maybe I should make an angel food cake for my birthday this week?

Maybe a pineapple angel food cake? I made a strawberry angel food cake when my Texas nephew requested a "strawberry" cake, on his visit to Cleveland in 2011. I substituted the water required in an angel food cake mix with pureed strawberries --- the cake had a light pink color and tasted yummy.

Angel food cake made with a can of crushed pineapple is wonderful, just dump the entire can plus liquid (natural juice) into the mix as the exchange for the water designated on the box of the cake mix.

My great-niece loves "purple" and blueberries -- for Emma, I would take a box of angel food cake mix, instead of water I would use pureed blueberries, and drop the batter into cupcake tins!

I bet one could use puree from any fruit from apples to mango -- as a substitute for the required liquid in cake mix for angle food cake. I used to make angle food cake from scratch - using many egg whites, but why bother per the convenience, quality, and fluffiness of an angel food cake mix can not be beat -- just make sure your mixer is in working condition on the highest speed!

As Ina would say "How simple is that?"

Emma loves cupcakes, don't we all?  Two year-old Emma would say, "O.K.!"