Chocolate Pineapple Cake

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Ananaslı Çikolatalı Kek"
PER ITALIANO 'Torta di Cioccolato e Ananas"

With the arrival of warmer weather conditions our daily trips have started again.
On 19 May to be precise, we visited 3 different places which are located in Tivoli of Rome that is around 3.5 hour drive from where we live.
I can't claim that I never walked this much in my life however it is extremely rare that I climbed up and down so many stairs and hills in one single day!

Our first stop was Hadrian's Villa which was constructed as a holiday and pleasure palace for Roman Emperor Hadrian in 2nd century AD. It covers an area of around 120 hectares. It is listed as an Unesco World Heritage Site. It really is hard to comprehend the fact that you are walking on the lands of a place which was built almost two millenniums ago!

Secondly, we visited another Unesco registered place: Villa d'Este which was built for Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este in 1560. It is a nice example of Renaissance architecture and the Italian Renaissance garden. We were fascinated by its fantastic garden which is decorated with beautiful fountains, jets and flowers.

Lastly we went to Villa Gregoriana. Its heavenly romantic green garden with many cascades was both enchanting and also so peaceful.

We walked a lot but it was definitely worth it! 
If some day you happen to visit these places I'd recommend you to have a bottle of water with you all the time because we got so thirsty.

Let's get back to our kitchen business now ;)

For today's recipe I can say that it's been a great marriage of pineapple and cake.
While typing the recipe I so felt like baking it right now but no way, I am on diet recently:)
To tell you the truth it is pretty hard to write a blog during diet ;)

Ingredients:
70g butter
55g sunflower oil
60g milk
2 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder
180g sugar
3 eggs
160g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 bag of vanillin sugar
2 cans of sliced pineapples (1 can = 234g)
50g chocolate chips

Icing sugar (to decorate)


Preparation:

• Put butter, sunflower oil, milk and cocoa powder in TM Bowl, mix for 3-4 minutes at 50ºC on Speed 3-4. Set aside.

• Beat sugar and eggs for 1 minute on Speed 4.
• Add flower, baking powder and vanillin sugar. Mix for 30 seconds on Speed 4.
• Add cocoa mixture and mix for 20 seconds on Speed 4.
• Dice 60g of pineapple and add in TM Bowl. Mix for 20 seconds on Speed 4-5.
• Add chocolate chips and mix for 20 seconds on Speed 2-3.
• Grease a spring form pan around 20-22cm diameter, cover with baking paper.
• Transfer mixture into pan, bake for 35-40 minutes in preheated oven at 180ºC. (You can check with a toothpick if it's cooked)

• Remove it from oven, let it rest in cake pan for 5 minutes, take it out of pan and let it cool.
• Sprinkle with icing sugar and decorate with thinly sliced pineapple. (I  made my pineapple slices thinner by slicing them again in half, so I obtained 2 slices out of 1) 

Enjoy..

Adapted with a few changes from the recipe titled Torta di Cioccolato e Ananas in the book named "Pazzi per il Cioccolato"