Enjoy this easy two-ingredient Pineapple Angel Food Cake, it’s light, fluffy, and tropical. Pair it with some fresh fruit or even whipped cream for a dessert that will delight your family.
Light, airy, and just a tad sweet, angel food cake is has been a favorite cake for generations, but some people find it a bit on the bland side. The ridiculously simple Pineapple Angel Food Cake recipe below ups the deliciousness factor of this classic dessert considerably, and it only takes one additional step and less than a minute! Stock up on the three shelf-stable ingredients needed for this recipe, and you can always whip up something sweet!
Table of Contents
Which Pans Can I Use For Baking an Angel Food Cake with Pineapple?
Bakers traditionally use tube pans for baking angel food cakes, but why, and is it worth spending your money on one?
Besides adding a little more interest to an angel food cake’s appearance, there is a real purpose behind the design of a tube pan. Many angel food cake recipes contain far less flour than other cakes. While less flour increases the fluffiness of the cake, it also significantly decreases the cake’s stability. The tube in the middle of the pan provides additional support for the batter to cling to, keeping the cake from collapsing in the oven.
In addition to providing a helping hand during the baking process, many tube pans have a removable bottom section. The removable portion of the pan helps avoid the bottom of the cake from sticking and tearing in half when trying to remove the cake from the pan. Oh, and those three strange-looking nubs on the rim of some tube pans are there to elevate the upside-down cake from the surface of the counter as it cools.
There is an open space in the middle of a bundt pan, can I substitute it for a tube pan?
No. Angel food cakes are light and airy, but bundt pans were designed for dense cakes. Not only are many bundt pans too short to allow an angel food cake to raise correctly, but their scalloped or decorative sides can cause the delicate angel food cake to stick to the pan too well.
Urgh, do I have to run out a buy a tube pan before I try this recipe?
Nope. The good news is that you don’t have to as long as you have a non-non-stick baking pan. Non-stick cookware will not work because it will stop the batter from climbing the sides, and you will end up with a flat, dense, and undercooked mess. If you want to try to recreate the look of a traditional angel food cake without a tube pan, Epicurious has a hack for that!
Tips for Making and Serving Angel Food Cake With Pineapple
- Let it stick. You don’t hear it every day when it comes to baking, but don’t do anything to prevent the cake from sticking. Wax paper and greasing the pan are big no-no’s.
- Go full tropical. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream and some shredded coconut to get more of a Caribbean vibe.
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Ingredients
Here’s what you need to make the cake:
- Angel Food Cake Mix
- Can of Crushed Pineapple
- Vanilla
That’s it! Just 3 simple ingredients.
How to Make Pineapple Angel Food Cake
In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the angel food cake mix, vanilla, and crushed pineapple including the juice in the can.
Place batter into a ungreased 9 x 13 inch pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.
Allow the cake to cool then slice and enjoy!
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Pineapple Angel Food Cake
Ingredients
- 1 box Angel Food Cake mix - use one step mix
- 20 ounces crushed pineapple packed in its own juice, do not use packed in syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the angel food cake mix, vanilla, and can of crushed pineapple including the juice in the can by hand and place into a ungreased 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.
Notes
- a dollop of whipped cream and shredded coconutÂ
- a dollop of whipped cream and some crumble macadamia nuts
- a dollop of whipped cream and a maraschino cherryÂ
Pearl Poss
I am today making your grandmother’s recipe for pineapple angel food cake. The recipe doesn’t say to add the vanilla but I am assuming you add it into the cake batter as you mix it. I know it will be delicious.
Stephanie
Yes, I will get that added in there. Thanks!
Nancy C.
Really enjoyed this recipe ???
Nicole
Do you add the water, as per the box angel food cake recipe? Or just the dry mix and pineapple?
Stephanie Manley
Just do the dry mix and the pineapple.
Vina Malpica-Connaughton
Thanks for sharing simple to make and great tasting
Stephanie
I hope you enjoyed this recipe.
LisaC
This tastes soooooo good. Were it not for the fact that my daughter open and slammed the oven door not realizing there was a cake inside, it probably would have been perfect. As it was, it came out a bit dense, but … the *flavor*… Wow! Thanks for this easy cheezy recipe! I will be making it again, hopefully without any looky loos.
Burguete
This cake is delicious – it is sweet but not syrupy with a light and spongy texture. The recipe is wonderfully simple, foolproof really. I mixed the 3 ingredients together roughly by hand, then added a little yellow food coloring and mixed again. I poured it into a glass pan that was coated in veg oil cooking spray. Cooked it for 30 mins then let it cool in the pan. I frosted it with butter cream (butter, powdered sugar, milk) that had reduced light coconut milk sub’d for the regular milk and the addition of coconut flakes. Thanks for sharing!
Suse
Do you grease and flour the 9 x 13 pan?
lisa
This is too weird. I just stumbled onto this looking for a recipe on this site for Starbucks apple bran muffins. I too have a wonderful collection of handwritten recipes of my grandmother’s that look very much like the one posted. They are so precious to me. I keep meaning to make a “cookbook” out of them to pass on to family members. I too have very fond memories of my gr
andma, her cooking and her kitchen!
Sue Minick
Oh…Wow!!! What a great picture of your grandmother and my aunt. I was surfing your site and always click on the family recipes and you are so right….Aunt Ethel’s penmanship was beautiful. Cursive will become a lost art in the very near future. I know you treasure those hand written recipes as I do my mom’s.
Tess
I am trying to figure out why ElSat’s cake did not turn out. And I am trying to do it before making the cake myself. What I am thinking is that this cake has only three ingredients; perhaps ElSat made the recipe with additional ingredients as per the box of cake mix. Perhaps the vanilla was omitted as the directions do not say to include it. Maybe it was unpalatable because it was a Weight Watcher’s recipe.
Stephanie
Tess,
I have no idea what happened to her cake, I have made this cake many times without fail. It could have been an old cake mix, it could have been using pineapple with syrup instead of the water packed version.
Lorelie
Does it matter if the pineapple is in heavy syrup or should you use the kind in “it’s own juice”?
Stephanie
Use the pineapple packed in its own juice, do not use the kind packed in syrup.
ElSat
Made this recipe and it turned out terrible! Had to throw it out! Instructions were too vague and when I saw the original handwritten version and then the printed version i wondered if the “one step” cake mix made the difference and if it did, what was it?
Stephanie
This recipe typically turns out very well. I don’t know what happened to your cake. The one step boxed cake mix, just meant a box of angel food cake mix. I am very sorry the cake you made was horrible and you had to throw it out.
Melissa
It has to be a one step mix. There are some packages that have 2 pouches. The 2 pouch variety will turn out gummy and flat.
Anna Sudbrock
Could you give me texture of this cake? Is it moist & chewy or more like just ordinary cake? I plan to make it very soon but just wondered more about it. Thanks so much for all of your recipes. I have copied tons of them.
Stephanie
It is a very light cake, it is kind of chunky inside because of the crushed pineapple.
Kathy
what a precious memory. Thanks for sharing it with us. I have almost all of my mothers recipes also, many of them in her hand writing. We’re Polish, so you know cooking runs through our blood.
stephaniemanley
I love those hand written recipes.
Paula Baxter
This is also a Weight Watchers recipe. It is soooooooooooooo fabulus.
Theresa Baer
Sounds like a great recipe – will be sure to try it….
Does the crushed pineapple need to be drained?
Stephanie
You dont need don’t to drain the pineapple.
Snafooo
Stephanie, again you have prompted a response from me. I usually am a ghost reader. I have recipes written by four different hands. My mother, two grandmothers and me. I will keep them because they are hand written. The ones by me I keep because they remind me how I came by them. I had left home under bad circumstances and would call my mother from work during my lunch break. “Hey, I’ve thawed out ______, what do I do with it?” And she would give me basic cooking instructions. I still have those scribbled notes. I also have over 80 cookbooks and an extensive folder of recipes I have gleaned from usenet in the 80s and 90s and then from websites. And yes, Stephanie, some of those recipes are yours. Your website is one that I have been reading for years, and I love it.
Stephanie
Wow, thanks so much 😉 I really think it is the special recipes that we hold the most dear. I can always buy another cookbook, I can’t replace my grandmother’s recipes.
Connie
Be sure to identify each recipe by where in the family tree it falls. Provenance for the following generations. and check with an expert for storing your precious treasures.
Name (required)
Thanks, your so lucky to have such nice memories!
Mitzi
This brought back memories of the same. I ran across scribbled recipes of old southern desserts and side dishes my grandmother had written. One you rarely hear of is “Lane Cake”.
Vicky
Fifteen years ago at a big family reunion combining many sides of the family, a favorite recipe was asked from each person. This was put into a book for all to each receive at the party. Sadly, that was the last reunion due to many passings, but I use that book almost everyday and remember the meals and the person. I’ve already made a cookbook of my own recipes for my kids to remember with stories behind each recipe.
Stephanie
Vicky that is a wonderful thing you are doing with the putting the stories behind he recipes!
Luanna Woolsey
I tried this recipe and it was like a sponge. Couldn’t eat it and had to throw it out. What did I do wrong? I followed the instructions. Very disappointed.
Stephanie
I am so sorry I don’t know what happened, This has always been a very reliable recipe. I’ll shoot you an email to troubleshoot.