Easy Pineapple Angel Food Cake

Years ago, one of my co-workers brought a wonderful pineapple cake in to share. It was unbelievable -- light and fluffy, yet filling. The pineapple was semi-caramelized on the edges, and bits throughout the cake made it almost as good as my standard brown-sugar-and-butter pineapple upside down cake.

Then she told us it was fat-free. And that it took two -- yes, count 'em, two -- ingredients.

Here is the recipe, in toto:

1 box angel-food cake mix
1 22 oz. can of crushed pineapple.

Disregard package directions on angel-food cake mix, except for preheating, temperature, and baking times. Mix angel-food cake mix with undrained crushed pineapples. Pour batter into a nonstick bundt cake pan. Now bake according to the angel-food cake package directions.

This doesn't sound like much, but trust me, it's great. If you want a little more complexity to it, you can make a light glaze by blending 1/4 cup of nonfat milk with an equal amount of powdered sugar and drizzling it over the cake.

Cake For Christmas

Fruitcakes are traditional Christmas gifts. This pineapple angel food cake makes a wonderful low-calorie substitute for that tradition. I suggest baking it in a Christmas wreath-shaped bundt pan. If your bundt pan is formed right, you should have holly-berry or other round depressions; for a more festive look, place stemless maraschino cherries in these depressions before carefully pouring the batter into the pan.

This recipe also takes color pretty easily, though you should be careful about overdoing it. After the batter is ready, you can measure in red and green sugar sprinkles. Just stirred in, this creates a pretty confetti effect. The top of a glazed cake can be decorated before the drizzle hardens as well, either with red and green sprinkles or with a sparkling clear sugar sprinkle. Once you have the right effect, you can decorate further with fake holly leaves and other small Christmas greenery.