What is the first thing you think of, when I say passionfruit.

Pavlova, right?

Like most Aussies, I love passionfruit drizzled over the top of my pavlova. But other than pavlova, tropical drinks, or just cutting them in half and digging in with a tea spoon, I’d never given much thought to this yummy fruit.

So this week, I was issued a challenge by Passion Fruit Australia to come up with a recipe where passionfruit is the champion.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I received a box of the biggest and yummiest looking passionfruit I have ever seen and was inspired to start baking with them straight away.

You may have seen all of my pictures on Facebook and Instagram last night. I was a little bit excited by the final result. If only I could have shared them with you, via “smell a vision” or “taste a vision”. Instead, I’ll just share the recipe with you. I hope you have a go at making this cake. It is delicious and the flavour will remind you of summer in this cold wintery weather.

INGREDIENTS:

Cake

2 eggs

125 g butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 cups self-raising flour

2/3 cup milk

3 tablespoons of desiccated coconut

2-3 large passionfruit

Icing

1-2 large passionfruit

1 cup of icing sugar

1-2 tablespoons of desiccated coconut

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius

In an electric mixer:

1. Cream butter and sugar.

2. Beat in the eggs (low speed)

3. Add 1 cup of flour and half of the milk. Beat until all combined. Add the second cup of flour and the rest of the milk.

4. Beat on high speed for a couple of minutes until it’s well combined.

5. Cut the passionfruit in half and strain them through a small sieve into a cup or bowl. Discard the seeds.

5. Stir through the coconut and the passionfruit juice with a spoon.

6. Grease a cake (or loaf) pan, and line the base with greaseproof paper.

7. Pour mixture into tin and bake 30-40 minutes.

It’s a golden cake so it may look cooked, even if it’s not quite ready. Poke a skewer into the centre. If it comes out cleanly, the cake is cooked.

Let it sit for a minute or 2 in the pan and then place it on a plate.

8. Poke holes over the top of the cake with a skewer, fork or as I did, with a chop stick. This is where the drizzle magic will happen.

9. In a sturdy measuring cup (I use a Pyrex cup with a pouring spout) strain out the juice from the 1-2 passionfruit. Discard the seeds.

9. Add the 1 cup of icing sugar into the passionfruit juice and stir it through until all lumps are dissolved and it’s runny enough to pour, but not too runny. If it’s too runny, it will just run too quickly over the sides of the cake and won’t run nicely into the holes. So if it’s too runny, add a little more icing sugar to thicken it up slightly.

10. Drizzle the cake (slowly) with the passionfruit icing sugar mixture. The icing sugar will fill up the holes made with the skewer.

11. Sprinkle over the remaining desiccated coconut.

Serve and enjoy!

NB: It tastes great with whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream

Passionfruit is such a versatile fruit, that it can be used on many different dishes. Passionfruit is a great way to bring out the flavour of pork, or it goes well with seafood or salads.

Passionfruit is available all through the year, but it has two ‘flush’ periods in Australia. The first flush occurs in June and July (NOW) and the second flush between December and February. Queensland produced the majority of Australia’s passionfruit due to it’s lovely warm climate.

Visit www.passionfruitaustralia.org.au for more facts and recipes.

What other ways do you eat passionfruit?

Do you have a favourite recipe you’d like to share with us?

I was sent a yummy Passionfruit Cordial recipe, which I’ll share on the Samelia’s Mum Facebook Page soon. Thanks to R.R. for the recipe x