Tropical White Cake w/ Pineapple filling and Malibu rum frosting

So this was for Father's Day. My dad's favorite cake is white cake with pineapple filling. I've learned a few things during this. 1, I seriously need to work on my decorating skills. 2, Malibu rum is my favorite ingredient. 3, I need to work on photography. Maybe take a class or something.



White Tropical Cake

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 Tbsp Malibu coconut rum
3/4 cup pina colada yogurt (or plain, but I think it gives it more flavor)
1 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Beat your butter, in a large bowl or stand mixer, for about a minute. Add in your sugar into the butter and cream for a little while.
3. Add one egg into the mix at a time, beating for about 30 seconds in between eggs.
4. In a small bowl, combine your yogurt, rum, milk, and vanilla.
5. In another bowl, combine your flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
6. Alternate between adding dry and wet into the mixture. Mix until well blended.
7. Grease two 8'' pans and place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of each. Divide the mixture between the two pans and shake them gently to even out (or gently spread the top with a spatula). Bake the pans in the middle of the oven for about 30-35 minutes.

Pineapple filling:
1 pineapple or 20 Oz of crushed pineapple
3 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
6 egg yolks
1 stick of butter or margarine

1. If you're using a whole pineapple, which is what I used, twist the top off, cut the top and bottom off, cut the outside off, and then cut the meat off around the core. Put chunks of pineapple into a food processor or chopper of sorts to crush the pineapple.
2. In a large sauce pan, mix your flour, sugar, pineapple, and egg yolks.
3. On medium heat, stir the mixture constantly for the next 5-10 minutes. Mine took about 8. The mixture will eventually start to thicken. Once it reaches a somewhat thickened state, take it off the heat and add slices of butter/margarine into the filling and stir. Set it to the side to cool.

Frosting:
2 sticks butter
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 Tbsp Malibu Rum
1 Tbsp milk

1. Whip your butter together. Slowly add your powder sugar, adding one liquid at a time until you reach a consistency you like.


Construction:

Now, you don't have to do it this way, but this is how I did it. Once the cakes cooled a bit, I wrapped them in plastic wrap and stuck them in the freezer for about an hour. After, I placed one cake on the plate, top of the cake to the bottom. Build a 'dam' around the edge of the cake with some of your frosting using a pastry bag. Fill the middle with pineapple filling, after its cooled. Take your second cake and place it on top, bottom facing towards the filling (so both bottom parts of the cake will be facing one another). Frost cake as you wish. I decorated with maraschino cherries. Cut and enjoy! This cake was rather dense, but moist and tropically like.



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Malibu Coconut Cupcakes

This post was supposed to be on Cinnamon Apple and Raisin Empanadas BUT I hit some button and then another and the ENTIRE post got deleted. :/ And it wouldn't let me bring it back. So, RAR. Its gone. Oh well, now I can actually post a cupcake. I just got done baking these cupcakes and they're absolutely delicious (IMO anyway). I've been wanting to mess with booze and cupcakes for awhile now. I really wanna make a Colorado Bulldog cupcake but that'll have to wait. I've also wanted to do a coconut cupcake. And Malibu rum is just so good! I had a base recipe that I got from Washington Post but ...ended up altering it a lot. I've also discovered I enjoy adding FLAVORED yogurt vs plain. These cupcakes turned out so very moist and somewhat light and just oh so yummy! Almost don't need frosting but I am going to frost them anyway. And I have no cupcakes, but I'll post some when I actually get to frosting these.
Malibu Coconut Cupcake (makes 24)
2 1/2 AP flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 Tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs, seperated
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup malibu caribean rum with coconut flavor
3/4 cup yogurt*
1 cup sweetened coconut (lightly preferably)

1.) Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2.) Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
3.) Beat your butter, in a large bowl or stand mixer, for about a minute. Add in your sugars into the butter and cream for a few minutes.
4.) Add one egg yolk into the butter/sugar mix at a time, mixing for about 30 seconds in between each other. Set your egg whites to the side for now. Try not to get any yolks in your whites or else you won't be able to whip up the egg whites like needed.
5.) Mix together the yogurt, vanilla, and rum together in a small bowl.
6.) Alternate between pouring wet and dry ingredients into the batter slowly, ending with your dry. Mix in your coconut once the wet and dry are mixed.
7.) In a clean bowl (or your flour bowl), beat your egg whites on high with 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar until you get stiff peaks. Slowly, and gently, fold in your egg whites in portions to your batter, with as few strokes as possible.
8.) Divide into cupcake cups, filling about 3/4s of the way, and bake for 15-20 minutes. You may want to rotate the pans half way through.

Toasted Coconut Buttercream Frosting
2 sticks of unsalted butter
2-3 cups of powdered sugar (I used about 2 1/2)
2 Tbsp Malibu Rum
1 Tbsp heavy cream (or milk)
1/2 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup coconut

1.) Preheat your oven to 300°F. On a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, sprinkle your cup of coconut over the sheet and pop into the oven for about 10 minutes, occasionally moving them around and turning the sheet half way through the time. Once done, set out to cool.
2.) Whip the butter and add sugar. Only add a half cup or cup at a time, I find this is easier. I add in the rum, cream, and vanilla in between sugar to help it keep moving.
3.) Hopefully your coconut is done cooling by now. Add it into the frosting and stir a little more to incooperate it through out.

I forgot to grab photos of these cupcakes before we ate them all. However, they were loved so much that I'll be making them again in about two weeks for a birthday! So maybe I'll remember pictures then.

*As far as yogurt goes, you can use the normally recommended, plain yogurt. I used pinã colada yogurt (it'll take one and a half containers to make 3/4 cup) but I was originally looking for a coconut pie flavored one.