Here’s a recipe from the past that I really like. Passionfruit are plentiful at the moment, so it’s a great seasonal summer cake.
Claudia Roden is famous for her Middle Eastern orange cake, and it’s a staple in my cake baking repertoire.
This cake incorporates the Claudia Roden idea of cooking the whole fruit, this time with a lemon instead of an orange. It’s a yoghurt cake, too, and has oil instead of butter. All of which make for a very moist cake! Lemon drizzle syrup and a passionfruit icing give a tangy sweetness.
Ingredients
1 lemon
1 cup caster sugar
3 free-range eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup Greek yoghurt
2 cups self raising flour
Method
Preheat oven to 190 degrees C, 170 degrees C fan. Grease a 24 cm spring form tin and line the base with baking paper.
Place the lemon in a saucepan with water and boil gently till soft- about 1 hour. When cooked, leave to cool, cut in half and remove the pips. Then blitz in a food processor until pureed.
Place the caster sugar in the food processor, and process until well combined. Add the eggs and oil, mix well. Stir in the yoghurt, followed by the flour.
Pour the mixture into the tin. It will be quite loose. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool slightly in the tin, and then turn out onto a wire rack.
Lemon Syrup
Combine 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1/2 cup caster sugar in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear.
Pierce the cake all over with a skewer. While the cake is still warm, drizzle the lemon sugar syrup over the cake and allow it to soak in.
Passionfruit Icing
Place 1 cup icing sugar in a bowl with 2 passionfruit. Mix carefully to make a smooth, flowing icing. Ice the cake, allowing the icing to flow over the sides of the cake.
The Quirk and the Cool 