Passion fruit curd cake

What came first? Oh the horrid poultry question that endless drunken nightmare conversations have failed to answer. But I can tell you that the idea of the cake came first, after the purchase and subsequent wrinkling of the passion fruit, but before the making of the curd. I could draw you a timeline, like an English teacher explaining the past continuous, but I won’t.

I was searching for passion fruit recipes again (I’ve done this so much recently that google keeps bombarding me with passion fruit flavoured advertising), when I came across this Lilikoi curd cake recipe from 101 cookbooks. It has my name all over it, literally.

Before I was stuck on buttercream and ganache, but now I know, curd is the right way, the only way. Get rid of all those preconceptions that cooking passion fruit will make it bitter and deaden the flavour (or was it just me that thinks this?), because here we cook it twice and it not only retains its freshness and vitality, but lends an almost unbelievable fragrance to the finished cake.

With a moist crumb and unexpected freshness it is clear that this cake must come first.

Passion fruit Curd Cake
Adapted from 101 Cookbooks Lilikoi Curd Cake. After a little incident of overflowing cake from a pie dish I transferred the remaining batter to a 12 cup muffin tray. You could also use a loaf pan.

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
170g unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar (I used Vietnamese dark raw sugar)
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup passion fruit curd

Preheat your oven to １８０ degrees, and butter your cake pan very well.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together to combine. Set aside.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until softened and very smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar and beat for a further three minutes until mostly dissolved. Then add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition. When all the eggs are mixed in, add the vanilla extract.

Now, add the dry ingredients to the wet and fold through, being careful not to over-mix.

Put half the batter into your prepared cake tin, pushing it out to the edges. Now, spread half your curd over the batter, keeping clear of the edges. Cover the curd with the rest of the batter. Dollop the remaining curd on top of the cake and swirl a butter knife through if this effect is desired.

Bake for about 50 mins (obviously this will be less if you are using a muffin tray for mini-cakes), they are ready when they’re set and bounce back a little when pressed. Let cool, serve at room temperature with extra curd, you know you want to.