Lent Baking Challenge wk1

WEEK 1/ PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
Lent is often described as a spiritual journey - we journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem, and walk with him through the events of Holy Week leading up to the Cross...
But unlike those first followers of Jesus, we know the story doesn't end on that first Good Friday.
St Augustine, the great 5th century African theologian and bishop stated:
'We are the Easter people, and "Alleluia!" is our song.
As we take these early steps into the season of Lent, so we look at our map to the end point, Easter Sunday, where death itself was overturned. Jesus triumphed over the grave, and in so doing pointed the way to eternal life with God.
So we begin this baking journey nourished and strengthened with knowing the joy that is to come at the end of the Lenten journey and of the joy to come forever.
Given we follow the one who overturned death, and who spoke of God's upside-down kingdom, what better way to begin our baking adventure than with pineapple upside-down cake?

Recipe/
You will need:
For the glaze and decoration -
50g butter or marg.
50g light brown sugar
1 x tin of pineapple rings glace cherries -
1 per each pineapple ring used 

Sponge mix -
100g butter or marg
100g caster sugar
100g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tblsp of the pineapple juice/syrup

Start by creating the glaze and the decoration at the bottom of the tin.
Mix together 50g butter or margarine, and 50g light brown sugar, and spread this over the bottom of a cake tin and a little way up the sides.
Open a tin of pineapple rings, and place these in a pattern all over the base, putting glace cherries in each hole.
Here is all our glorious hope for Easter- but we can’t see it yet.
We’re going to hide it under some sponge cake mixture.

Mix together 100g butter or margarine, 100g caster sugar, and 100g self-raising flour, along with 1 tsp baking powder, 1tsp vanilla essence, plus two tablespoons of the juice or syrup from the pineapples. Pour this over the pineapples and glace cherries, until they are completely covered.

Bake for 35mins at 180C/GM4, then take out of the oven.
Carefully [don't burn yourself!] up-end onto a plate.
All that hidden beauty and colour can now be seen, like the life that bursts into the world again at springtime, like the life of Jesus that fills the world with love and goodness.

Often, in Lent, we talk of taking things on, but more often we hear about giving things up...
Having taken on the baking challenge, you might consider giving up some of that baking goodness to a neighbour, or someone you know who might just appreciate a little glimpse of God's love and goodness in an act of kindness...

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Augustine was mentioned above. Here’s an excerpt from St. Augustine’s Confessions, in which he laments his hesitant embrace of faith in God.

Late have I loved you 
Late have I loved you,
Beauty so ancient and so new,
late have I loved you!

Lo, you were within, but I outside,
seeking there for you,
and upon the shapely things you have made
I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,
those things which would have no being,
were they not in you.

You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
you lavished your fragrance, I gasped;
and now I pant for you;
I tasted you,
and now I hunger and thirst;
you touched me,
and I burned for your peace.

When at last I cling to you with my whole being
there will be no more anguish or labor for me,
and my life will be alive indeed,
alive because filled with you.
      ~ Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

A blessing for the way:
May we find the road that leads to life;
may we take the turns that brings right relationships;
may we pause to accompany others on the way;
and may we journey with God through Lent,
and long for the horizon and dawn.
And the grace.
    ~ written by Roddy Hamilton

Enjoy your baking everyone. And, if you're so minded, perhaps take a photo and send it in to us to share. Email/  minister.upperclyde@gmail.com