Dinner Club Dessert

Monday night was dinner club. The theme for this evening was Hawaiian. Everything had to have pineapple, coconut or macadamia nuts. YUM!

Question: What could be bad about that?

Answer: Absolutely nothing! 

My dilemma is, I work all day (until 5) on Mondays and then have to go home (5:30-40) and get changed and pick up my food and get back to Middletown (about 30-40 minutes depending on the house) by 6:00, 6:30 or 7:00 depending.  So, it's always a mad rush.  I have to make something that can be made ahead (Sunday afternoon) and will keep overnight and travel the distance. Shrimp cocktail, for an example, was something I made. I made the dipping sauces on Sunday and the shrimp on Monday morning.  Everything chilled in the fridge until after work. I had to pack the cooler for that one though ... a hassle to keep it chilled. See what I mean?  So it limits my options a lot more than I really thought about when I signed up. 

Given the theme and the above predicament, I decided to go out of my comfort zone and make a dessert. Cupcakes would travel and could be made in advance.  Coconut cupcakes with dried pineapple flowers!  No problem ....

....right.

I have been seeing these cute dried pineapple flowers on Pinterest.  You can find them here: Annie's Eats.  Gorgeous, bright, perfect pineapple flowers.  Peel, cut, bake, cool. Simple. But I did notice there were 80 comments, so I started to read a few. It seems that some people were having a hard time achieving the results that appeared on the website. I decided I better do a test run. So six hours later on a Saturday afternoon, failure. I couldn't get the flowers to form.  The comments had been correct - cutting the pineapple thin enough was the problem. You have to cut them paper thin all the way through leaving a perfect circle shape. The solution was a meat slicer, but I don't have one of those so I quit.

Yesterday afternoon in major humidity I decided to try again. I didn't have high expectations, but I wanted to try. I cut my pineapple as thin as I possibly could and baked it for 45 minutes at 225 and then flipped for another 45 minutes. Then it was a game of flip.  Every ten minutes or so I flipped until I thought I had a right.  I put them in the muffin tins and left them over night to set.  When I got up Monday morning I was so discouraged. They were okay, but they were still sticky and flimsy ... not like on the website. With nothing to lose (I couldn't use these) I made one last attempt. I put them in the oven for about 30 minutes on 225 and when I got them out, I knew I had success!  I cooked a few to the "crispy stage" and they wouldn't bend into the muffin tins.  But the others seem to harden almost instantly.  

Three days of trying and a WHOLE LOTTA pineapple and I got these:

Everyone who knows me, knows I CANNOT BAKE.  Not at all.  I found this recipe on Recipe Girl: White Wedding Cupcakes. It starts with a cake mix, so I felt more comfortable with that: box white cake mix,  flour, sugar, salt, water, canola oil, vanilla extract, sour cream, egg whites. When they were done baking but still hot, I brushed them with a dab of cream of coconut (like Grandmommy's coconut cake recipe).  The frosting was easy too: butter, powdered sugar, cream of coconut, vanilla extract. I would recommend this to anyone who has trouble baking. This is a no fail recipe that was really good!

The pineapple flowers on the other hand, I don't recommend unless you have a lot of time and patience and a meat slicer!