Pina Colada Cake

Last weekend, I had a friend over and, being girls, of course we loaded up on the sweets at the grocery store before heading to my place. That meant cinnamon rolls, donuts, chocolate, juice, and a small bag of goldfish crackers to offset the sugar for lunch! We also got a couple cartons of juice. Needless to say we couldn't finish it all. Not even half. So last week I was eating donuts and cinnamon rolls instead of real food..but that's not the point here. What I'm trying to get at is that I was left with a carton of pina colada juice (new from Dole apparently!) unopened and sitting in my fridge. I'm not a huge juice drinker, so I've been drinking it (diluted with water) and kept thinking of how I could use the juice in my baking. I've had a hankering for pound cake, so I thought I'd flavor the cake with juice! Perfect!

The results? Well, I tinkered with a recipe I found on Baking Bites and then went and glazed one half of the cake while leaving the other half untouched. The verdict? I like the crunchy crust on the cake! The plain cake is quite tasty although the pina colada flavor doesn't really come out. I would recommend toying with reducing the amount of sugar and increasing the amount of juice to fix that. It is acutally sweeter than I thought it would be as well but it is a nice dense, yet pleasant pound cakey cake. Then I tried the glazed version. Glaze wins hands down. The pina colada flavor was there but not overpowering. The glaze does make the cake sweeter, but I have a sweet tooth and I'm ok with that! However, I do recommend small portions for this cake. I actually like them nice and bite-sized :) I imagine they'd go well with tea or coffee as well.


glazed half


unglazed half- see that crack in the back? I broke the cake when I inverted it ::tears::


oh so delicious! the glazed piece is the one that glistens! lol

Pina Colada Cake
adapted from Baking Bites

1 cup sugar
2 1/2 tbsp butter, soft
2 large eggs
1 tbsp Pina Colada juice
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

for glaze:
powdered sugar
Pina Colada juice

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease and flour a 9x9 pan.
In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter until light and crumbly, then beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the pina colada juice.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt, then stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture. Stir only until just combined.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20-24 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake and the top is golden brown.
Invert cake out onto a rack to cool.

*If using glaze, mix powdered sugar and juice to make the glaze. The glaze should be a slightly thick but liquid consistency. I started with about 2-3 tbsp of juice and kept adding powdered sugar until I reached my desired consistency. Brush the glaze on to the cake while still warm or drizzle glaze on after the cake is completely cooled. Either way is delicious (and sweet!)