This recipe came about when I wanted to use up some passionfruit leftover from the sponge cake I made a little while ago. I do find it funny that whenever we have leftover or almost over ripe fruit in the house we use it to bake with! We’d probably be better off just eating it, rather than adding sugar and butter to it, but that wouldn’t be as much fun though would it?
The base of this loaf cake is one I use often for cupcakes and whole cakes as well. It is quite versatile and has featured on the blog in the past in different forms. You can substitute the margarine for butter, the golden caster sugar for caster sugar, and the buttermilk for regular or skimmed milk. You can even use vanilla extract if you don’t have any vanilla bean paste. This loaf cake is that easy - you don’t even need to have all the right ingredients for it to be great!
I apologise if anyone is throughly sick of seeing recipes for cake that involve passionfruit from me. Unfortunately, when there is something I like, I keep using it! And when I get an idea for a cake or recipe, I find it hard to think of anything else until the idea has been brought to life! So be prepared for a few more slightly repetitious cakes in the next little while! All of which however, can be altered to suit your tastes or what you have available. This loaf cake for example, would be just as good using lemon juice in the icing.
On another note, the size of the loaf cake my look a little deceiving in the photos. This is because about half of it had already been eaten by the time I could take photos!
Ingredients:
125 g canola based margarine
3/4 cup golden caster sugar (raw caster sugar)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup buttermilk
For the Icing:
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
3-4 small passionfruit
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the margarine, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add half the flour and half the buttermilk and mix. Add the remaining flour and buttermilk and mix on medium speed until well combined.
Transfer the mixture into the loaf tin, smoothing the top. Bake for 1 hour, or until the cake springs back when touched lightly and a skewer comes out clean.
Cool in the tin for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack, leaving the baking paper underneath the cake (this will prevent the cake from sticking to the rack, and catch any runaway icing later).
Once the loaf has cooled completely, sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the pulp of 3-4 passionfruit gradually, mixing after each addition. Stop adding pulp when the icing is a nice smooth consistency. Drizzle the icing over the cake, allowing it to fall down the sides. Leave for 2-3 hours to allow the icing to dry before storing in an airtight container, or eat straight away!
All baking, styling and photography for this post by Kathryn Vincent of Kulinary Adventures of Kath.