One of the mottos for my life is “If it can wait, then let it wait.” Postponing things kind of run in the blood for me. So its not just a wonder if I bake a cake, click pictures, transfer them immediately and post it the very next day – its almost a miracle.

And you are seeing that miracle happen. Because this is a cake that was baked and decorated yesterday and the post is going live now. I am myself surprised. Could it be that I am getting to be….erm…more efficient? If I am, then I gotta lean back and take it slow ;-).

Coming to the cake here, it’s a pineapple fresh cream cake. This was baked for a close friend, sneaked into their house just before the clock hit 12 AM. Midnight cake cuttings are back in my life after a long gap. It feel like I am growing younger as life goes on.. :-)

Read on for the pictorial and the method. The base cake can be any vanilla sponge cake of your choice.

Serves : 10

Recipe and design inspired from this video

Ingredients:

• 9″ cake, cut into three pieces. I used the hot milk cake as the base cake.
• 1 can of tinned pineapple chunks in syrup
• about 2 cups fresh cream, whipped with 3-4 tablespoon sugar
• 2-3 tablespoon sugar, for adding to the syrup in tinned pineapple
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips, melted for chocolate lace collar (optional)
• cherry/strawberry preserve, for decoration

Method:

I used the hot milk cake as the base cake. The cake had three layers. This is the first layer. Anchor it to the base with some whipped cream and spoon over some of the pineapple syrup from the can on the cake. You don’t have to drench the cake, but sprinkle it all over. You can sweeten the pineapple syrup with some sugar, if you want to.

Layer some fresh cream on top. I left the edges out so that the top layer won’t squash it.

Chop the pineapple chunks into smaller pieces and layer them all over.

Keep the second layer on top and sprinkle with pineapple syrup from can.

Repeat the cream and pineapple chunks layer.

The final layer goes on top. Again sprinkle with syrup. And cover the whole cake with a thin layer of fresh cream.

Freeze the crumb coated cake for 10-15 minutes until it firms up.

Coat once again with fresh cream and give a smooth finish this time. It was a very hot day, so the cake went into the freezer again for 10-15 minutes.

To make a chocolate collar, melt some chocolate chips and put that in a ziplock. Cut a small opening and draw pattern of your choice on a parchment paper and freeze for a minute. I used two smaller collars as against one big collar. Wrap the collar(s) around the cake and gently peel off the parchment paper. Decorate as you wish (I used some strawberry preserve, that’s what I had) and refrigerate until the time of serving.

Refer here for stepwise pictures.

A serrated knife works better with the chocolate collar.