I love Sangria especially white Sangria with tropical fruits like mango, key lime and pineapple. Our summers get hot and humid here and we need a reason to continue to love summer. Summery drinks like Sangria helps us enjoy the heat just a little bit more.

This is just so refreshing and so easy to make. I bought a bottle of mango lemonade at Trader Joe’s the other day and each day I would add something to it. One day, I thought it would be nice with basil. Another day, frozen pineapple, and on another day I added in some key limes. Then it hit me. I’m making Sangria. All it needed was a bottle of white wine.

This is the summer party cocktail that starts the cookout or girls’ night in. I recently had Sangria at a place that mixes the wine in with each glass. That would be a great idea if you were having company and some drank and some did not.

Sangria is popular around our house. We have enjoyed Strawberry Sangria and Blackberry Sangria in the past. This is just as good without the wine and kid friendly.

Tell me what’s your favorite summer cocktail? I’m sticking with white Sangria.

Strawberry Sangria

Blackberry Sangria

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White Sangria with Mango, Lime, Pineapple and Basil

Refreshing tropical take on white Sangria.

Course Cocktail

Cuisine American

Servings 8

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1 quart of mango lemonade or lemonade
• 1 liter of dry white wine
• 4 key limes or 2 lime, sliced, 1 lime for juice, 1 lime for slices
• frozen pineapple
• fresh basil leaves

Instructions

• Mix juice limes, basil, frozen pineapple together.
• If making the night before, add the wine and refrigerate. You can add the wine to each glass, making them individually, using a ratio of half and half or whatever you prefer.

The post White Sangria with Mango, Key Lime, Pineapple and Basil appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

My love for carrara marble led me to make these cupcakes, which, of course, has nothing to do with marble, but everything to do with my seeking out a solution to get that marble look.

I used to live in a building in Long Beach California on the the top two floors of four-story walk up. It was built in 1928 and the steps were made of carrara marble. I lived their for four years and every day my love for those marble steps grew.

Cararra marble found in Carerra and in Italy is one of the most beautiful stones in the world. Michaelangelo carved David from it. However, it’s not really suitable for my high maintenance kitchen where red wine and espresso flow like a river. It stains. It scratches. It changes over time. I don’t really care in other parts of the home, as my antique end tables are topped with carrara marble, but in my kitchen, it’s not going to work. Or is there some kind of marble that I should take a look at?

A friend of mine recently remodeled her kitchen with a stone called Nuvolato, a type of marble. She installed it in her kitchen where three children reside and she said she doesn’t care if it gets some stains, as she loves it that much.

She invited me to see it and on the morning of the visit, I made her these pineapple cupcakes with toasted Coconut. I remembered how much she loved my legendary coconut cupcakes, and I had always promised her some. However, that never happened and on this particular morning,  I didn’t have everything I needed for those, and created this new recipe.  I was in a crazy pineapple mood and fresh pineapple had its way into the batter.

A few days later I continued that pineapple mood and  I made this pineapple spelt breakfast cake with pineapple flowers.  But my pineapple craze started with these simple, yet flavor bursting tropical pineapple cupcakes.

I loved her nuvolato. She loved my cupcakes. It was a happy afternoon.

I couldn’t design a more perfect looking stone, as it was exactly what I want for my own kitchen. I am currently getting an estimate to put this stone on my island. I’m not sure if I’m crazy or not. She did it two ways. Honed and polished. She said the honed (by her sink) is not staining at all, as she can easily rub those spots off, but the polished does pick up stains. She still doesn’t care. I love her attitude. She got what she wants and she’s quite content to please herself and not worry about imperfections. I want to be that way too. After all, my kitchen is the most lived in room of the my house and it should be okay that it shows a little history.

SINCE THIS POST: I had carrara marble (honed) put in my kitchen and I love it.

Do you have any input on putting marble on a kitchen countertop? I’m replacing Cambria quartz for the island, but leaving it on the back counters, so I need something that compliments it. This one does and it’s beautiful. The kitchen island right now is two levels, counter height and bar height, cutting my work space way down. By bringing the bar to the counter level and having one solid surface, I’ll have a lot more prep room, photography room and sunlight on the prep area. If I had only known to do this five years ago when I put the quartz in, but that was pre-blogging days.

Am I crazy for not going with granite or is there a granite that could do the job?

In the meantime, I’ll continue to ponder this decision.

The Pineapple Cupcakes with Toasted Coconut

I used fresh pineapple and  little bit of coconut inside a yellow cake, whipped up a cream cheese frosting, and topped with toasted coconut. I wish I would have had more fresh pineapple to decorate. I think a piece of pineapple with the cherry would have looked pretty. These were moist, fragrant and the texture of the coconut added a nice crunch.

I always bake a few in a jar for freezing for future treats. At any given time, my freezer has jar cake of some nature, explained more in this recipe here for red velvet in a jar.

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Pineapple Cupcakes with Toasted Coconut

Moist yellow cupcake, filled with pineapple and coconut, topped cream cheese and butter frosting and toasted coconut.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1¾ cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup fresh pineapple finely chopped (can used canned)
• 2 tablespoons yogurt
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup oil canola oil
• 1/2 cup coconut
• TOASTED COCONUT INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup coconut
• Cream Cheese frosting recipe in found in link below.
• Marachino cherries for each cupcake
• Note: If baking in jars you can use 1/2 pint wide mouth jars. Spray the jars with baking spray.

Instructions

• Sift baking soda, baking powder, flour together. Set aside.
• Mix together, eggs, sugar yogurt, pineapple, vanilla.
• Mix dry mixture into the sugar mixture. Add in oil, and mix. Add coconut.
• Pour into cupcake pans ¾ way.
• Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes, depending on size of cupcake.
• This makes approximately 12 large cupcakes.
• TOASTED COCONUT INSTRUCTIONS
• Lower heat to 350. Lay out coconut on shallow baking pan. Bake for 5 -10 minutes, checking at 5. If you want it really brown and crunchy, bake longer, but keep checking so it doesn't burn.
• The Cream Cheese Recipe is in a link below also found in my dessert category.
• Top with a cherry
• BAKING IN JARS
• This recipe rises high. I ended up with jars of cake filled to the brim, so I turned them over and they fell right out. I cut them in half and put them back in the jars. Do not fill more than 1/4 of the way of the jar. If you freeze your jar cakes like I like to do, leave an inch between the cake and the lid.

You can find the cream cheese recipe here. Just top with toasted coconut.

The post Pineapple Cupcakes with Toasted Coconut in a Jar or No Jar appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

This is one of those posts that I’m exploding all over to tell you about.

Often baked goods that look good don’t taste good, ,  or just arent’ healthy. Often the “healthy” baked goods look anything but happy and often dry.

This is happy pineapple flower breakfast cake made healthier with spelt flour, sucanat sweetener, yogurt and olive oil.  There is a tiny bit of pineapple glaze between the cake and the pineapple flowers.

I saw these adorable pineapple flowers on  Pinterest, with four pictures showing how it’s done. I pinned them, without checking to see where the picture led.  Usually, I vet every photo I pin, because all too often the photo is lifted and doesn’t go back to the original source. I know it’s tempting to repin a pin, but if you think that it’s a recipe you will want, you should check to see if the pin will take you there.

Eventually I googled pineapple flowers, and I found the recipe and those pinned pictures at  Annie’s Eats.  Annie got them perfect, but as I read through the instructions and most of the comments, I took notice that there were quite a few failures  along with successes with what looked like a fairly easy recipe. Now I not only wanted to make them, it became a challenge. I wondered why did some people fail?

Do you get like this about cooking? I get on a roll with an idea or a food and I beat it to death. I’m not quite Alton Brown of Good Eats, but I so “get him.” I’m a food geek. I have to get it right. I can’t share food with you and have you fail. I’ll make something three times before I post it so that you can get it right. I carefully record the recipe,  which in pre-blogging days, I had no idea how I made most things.  But, thanks to you out there, who google and find me, I am a better cook, and a much better baker and much more precise.

How to Make a Pineapple Flower

I bought my beautiful pineapple. I braced myself for a night of practice.

The best tip I read was to use a bread knife and instead of slicing, use a sawing motion. Once a slice is cut, it may be uneven. Lay in down flat and move the knife parallel with the board to get even slices, using the same sawing motion. That works.

I use this bread knife that I have had for years. It’s worth the investment to have a good bread knife.

The next step in making the pineapple flower is to remove the moisture. This was not mentioned in the recipe, and I thought of it because many comments complained of soggy pineapple that was not baking. It was probably steaming.

This step is important. I used a lot of paper towels to get the pineapple as dry as possible and at room temperature.  Bake them on something that will aid in crisping them a bit. I baked them inside a stone muffin pan, but you could bake them flat.

Watch your timing. Some were done in under an hour. Most took about an hour, but I recommend checking at 50 minutes just to be sure.

Be okay with imperfection.  Some get a little browned, and this has to do with not being able to slice them perfectly evenly. This was okay by me. They still taste delicious, almost like a dried fruit. Some got a little crispy on the ends and I liked that even more.  I will not waste any food. I would not throw out perfectly good pineapple flowers because they are  little browned, and neither should you.

I put a pineapple glaze on the cake while it was still hot. You can decide if you want to do this part, and how much you want to do. A very small amount of glaze works fine, just enough to keep the flowers on. You can also skip the glaze and the pineapple flowers and just have plain breakfast cake. It’s all good.

I ended up with a healthy, breakfast cake. I used spelt flour and all purpose flour, and a sweetener I’ve never used before, which is supposed to be healthier.

Sucanat is dried cane sugar, retaining all the vitamins and minerals that are processed out of white refined sugar. It’s brown, the color of molasses and the spelt flour is dark, so the cake will be a molasses color.  I used the sucanat  cup for cup, same as I do for spelt flour.

The result of the breakfast cake was much to my personal liking. This cake is moist, full of flavor, and not very sweet, just as a breakfast cake should be.  I tested it out on my foodie neighbor who appreciated a big hunk after a tough Saturday morning workout.  The best test of all is the  five year old twins loved it and they are the pickiest dessert eaters. If they love it, it’s good!

The pineapple flowers are perfect for a whole cake, a cupcake, or a muffin, but don’t let that stop you. I think the pineapple flowers would  would look sweet with some vanilla ice cream, atop banana bread, or even at dinner on a  pork chop. However, the next time, I’m thinking Caribbean burger. I like to think outside the pineapple.

The pineapple flowers coincided with a pineapple craving that is rare for me. I am just coming out of an illness (walking pneumonia and pluerisy with a relapse)  that took me down for six weeks, which has led to all kinds of odd food cravings, including pineapple. During this pineapple fest, I also made gorgeous, tropical pineapple coconut cupcakes which will be coming soon, pineapple smoothies and I’m still perfecting pineapple cobbler.

If you have any idea for fresh pineapple, do send them my way in the comments section, pretty please.

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Pineapple Flowers for a Pineapple Breakfast Cake Made with Spelt Flour

A recipe for a healthy spelt flour breakfast pineapple cake and a how to make pineapple flowers.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 2 hours hours

Total Time 3 hours hours 20 minutes minutes

Servings 6

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• ngredients
• 1 3/4 cups flour I mixed 1 cup spelt flour with 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup chopped fresh pineapple
• 1 cup sucanat sugar can use regular sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup plain yogurt
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil can use canola oil
• GLAZE INGREDIENTS
• 1 tablespoon pureed pineapple
• ½ cup of confectioner’s sugar (more if it is too runny)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Peel pineapple and remove any brown spots.
• Slice very thin with a serrated bread knife. Lay each slice down and take knife parallel across pineapple slice to make even. Use paper towels to remove as much moisture as possible.
• Reduce oven to 275. Put pineapple into a stone muffin pan or lay flat on a stone or silpat baking sheet, preferably. You can use a regular baking sheet.
• Bake at 275 for one hour. Check the pineapple at 30 minutes, turn over. Check again at 50 minutes, to make sure pineapple is not burning. Browned edges are okay.
• Sift baking soda, baking powder, flour, salt together. Set aside.
• Add together, sugar, pineapple, vanilla, yogurt, eggs,
• Mix dry mixture into the sugar mixture. Add in olive oil, and mix.
• Pour into a 9 inch cake pan.
• Bake for 27-33 minutes at 350.
• INSTRUCTIONS FOR GLAZE
• Mix together until glaze forms. If it’s too runny, add more confectioner’s sugar. If it’s too thick, add more liquid. Pour over the cake while it’s still warm.
• Apply pineapple flowers to the cake.

The post How to Make Pineapple Flowers for a Pineapple Cake appeared first on Spinach Tiger.