Whenever the Muswell Hill and District Horticultural Show rolls around (3 x per year) I always panic slightly about what cake to make to donate to the cake stall. Unlike Battenburgbelle, I am not a natural born cake maker. I like making bread, I like making soup, I like making all manner of savoury things, but cake is not my thing.
Unless however, I am in the mood to make a cake for someone’s birthday and don’t mind being super late for work… I am thinking in particular of the mammoth task that was Vincent Price’s Dark Mocha Cake.
This was definitely the best cake I ever made but MAN, it took a long time.
For the Autumn show, I settled on Vincent’s failsafe and delicious Pineapple Bread – it’s a bit of a misnomer. For just like banana bread, it’s actually a cake. It’s a good one if you have to make something ahead of time (I made this on a Thursday evening for sale on a Saturday afternoon as I knew it would still be good, it stays lovely and moist for a few days).
It all got sold. The ladies that run the tea and cake section at our shows deserve a medal, I wish I’d taken a photo of them. Thank you, Dorothy and Yvonne!
The show was great fun. Here are a few photos of some of the lovely entries to the classes, including my favourite, the novelty vegetable class!
Naturally, our President Gary scooped a LOT of the silver…
I have already shown off about winning the Marion Wilton Cup for most points in the cookery classes at the Spring, Summer and Autumn shows. I am so chuffed!
If you have a horticultural society in your area I totally recommend joining. Ours is only £6 per year for membership and it is worth every penny. The fun we have at our shows makes it worth £60 at least!
Please bear in mind that I don’t GROW anything, I am in it for the cookery classes – haha! Mind you, I have learned a lot about plants by helping out on the plant stall and now know my asters from my ficus.
So here’s Vincent’s recipe, the great thing about it is that it makes TWO cakes so I got to keep one too. Of course, you could halve the recipe and make just one, but why not make two and give one to a friend?
This is before the cakes went into the oven
If you can’t get crushed pineapple you can use ordinary tinned pineapple but you’d have to whizz it up in a food processor or blender.
I forgot to take a photo of the baked cakes, but here’s one I made earlier…
Thanks, Vincent! This is STILL my all-time favourite cake recipe.
