Feijoa and White Chocolate Cake

As I mentioned on my last post. It's crazy feijoa season here. There's about 2 months of the year that NZ has an overflow of feijoa, and then we don't see them again till the next year. Which is good, because when they are in season, there are so many, and they are so good, that without fail you completely gorge yourself on them, and by the end of the season, are so over them that you're searching for new and interesting ways to use them up. 

Note: they also freeze really well, so you can scoop the pulp and stow it away in the freezer for a baking on a rainy day if you've already had your fill for now. 

After the feijoa oatcakes and crumbles I've been making of late I wanted to try something new, plus Mr 3 wanted to make a 'Mudders Day' chocolate cake for me... FYI - by him helping bake, he means he wants to lick the spoon and eat all the ingredients, minimal help actually attained. But, he's there and involved and we have fun making a mess, so that's all good. But, yes, I made my own Mother's Day cake essentially. 

Now, he wanted chocolate cake, but me being me, and hating seeing food go to waste, I knew I needed to include the feijoa. There's a few feijoa cakes out there with cocoa in them,  but the idea of milk or dark chocolate with feijoa just doesn't quite sound right to me. Plus I wanted to make something that could have cream cheese icing, no explanation necessary on that one, cream cheese icing is THE BEST. 

A few years back I made feijoa and white chocolate muffins, which were an amazing flavour combo, so I wanted to recreate that in cake form here. The result here is a deliciously moist, rich yet tart cake. The richness comes from the white chocolate which caramelised in some spots, and the tartness from the feijoa and cream cheese icing. I've left the icing quite soft, as that's how I like it, but if you prefer a firmer icing, simply add more icing sugar. 

Ingredients (makes 24cm round cake): 

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp lemon juice 
• 1 3/4 flour
• 2 tsp baking powder 
• 120 grams butter, melted
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 tbsp boiling water (45ml)
•  1 cup of feijoa pulp
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, optional, but worthwhile

Icing:

• 100g butter, room temperature
• 100g cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups icing sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice and lemon zest

Method:

Grease a 25cm diameter cake tin. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. 

In a cake mixer, or using an electric hand beater beat sugar and eggs till light and fluffy. 

Add lemon juice, mix. Then add baking powder and flour, half a cup at a time, till all combined. 

Mix baking soda with boiling water, and along with feijoa pulp and melted butter, add to your cake mix, folding together till well combined. Finally fold in the chocolate chips. 

Pour cake mix into your greased cake tin and bake 40 - 50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. 

Leave to cool in tin for 15 mins before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Once cooled ice with cream cheese icing. 

To make icing, beat butter until light in colour and fluffy. Add softened cream cheese and beat until smooth and combined. Add sifted icing sugar half a cup at a time until it reaches the desired consistency. I like it quite soft. Stir in a teaspoon of lemon juice and lemon rind (optional). 

Passionfruit Cheesecake

Cheesecake, you either love it or you hate it and my house has always been divided. Well everybody loves it, and me, not so much... and seeing I am the one who tends to do most of the cooking, we don't often eat cheesecake. I'm not sure why I never liked it, maybe I just had one bad one and figured they were all like that - who knows. But what I do know, is that this recipe has me converted. Now that I've found one cheesecake I like, I'm looking forward to experimenting with other cheesecake flavours... watch this space. 

Passionfruit cheesecake is the Mr's all time ultimate favourite. It tops all other cakes and desserts. With passionfruit being in season, I thought I had better make him his favourite. Because this was such novelty in our house, I figured I better make a darn good one, so I trawled the internet and found literally hundreds of passionfruit cheesecake recipes, both baked and set with gelatine, some with the passionfruit mixed through, others layered on top. So I did what I do best, and followed all of them and none of them at the same time, taking different components from each, and adding my own twist, with a hint of ground ginger in the base. 

The result: A little (or large) slice of perfection! 

Ingredients (serves 8-12, depending who's eating it, if it was just my husband, you'd only get 6 slices!) 

BASE

• 250g packet of milk arrowroot biscuits
• 125g butter, melted
• 2 tbsp ground ginger

FILLING

• 1/2 cup hot water
• 1 tbsp gelatine powder
• 10 passionfruit
• 375g cream cheese, room temperature (equates to 1 & 1/2 tubs) 
• 1 cup cream
• 2/3 cup caster sugar

TOPPING 

• 5 - 6 passionfruit
• 1 tbsp sugar 
• 3/4 - 1 tsp gelatine powder
• 1 - 2 drops yellow food colouring
• hot water 

Prepare a round 25cm springform tin, by lining the base with non-stick baking paper. 

Place the biscuits into a food processor and blitz on high until they are finely crushed. Add ground ginger and blitz quickly to mix. Add melted butter and mix to combine.

Pour buttered biscuit crumbs into the bottom of the tin and use the back of a spoon to press firmly and evenly across the tin. Cover and set aside in the fridge to set. 

To make the filling, place the passionfruit pulp into a sieve over a bowl and use the back of a spoon to press the juice from the pulp. Reserve the pulp and seeds.*

Use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth, add the cream and passionfruit juice, mix well again. 

Put the hot water into a small bowl and sprinkle over the tablespoon of gelatine. mix to combine and allow to cool only slightly before pouring into and mixing with the cream cheese mixture. Pour all of this into the tin on top of the base. Spoon the reserved pulp on top and use a knife to swirl through the cheesecake mixture. Smooth over, cover and chill 

Finally prepare the passionfruit jelly for the top**. Scoop pulp from the remaining passionfruit, you should have about half a cup. Measure half a cup of hot water, stir in the sugar till dissolved, then stir in 3/4 of a teaspoon of gelatine (use 1 tsp if you prefer a firmer jelly, I like mine relatively runny, so that you can't actually tell it's jelly). Add the gelatine water to the passionfruit pulp and mix well to combine. You should have 1 cup altogether, if not, you may need to add a little water to make it up to a cup. Finally add a couple of drops of yellow food colouring to make it look really 'passionfruity'. Bring to room temperature before gently pouring over the top of the cheesecake. 

Cover and chill for at least four hours before serving. 

*The separating the passionfruit step can be left out if you're in a rush (or just feeling a bit lazy!), however I find that it helps to give the cream cheese a real passionfruit flavour. 

**The jelly on the top is a crucial step in making this seem like an authentic cheesecake. I only used 3/4 of a teaspoon of gelatine though as I didn't want it to fully set.  

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Carrot cake is my favourite cake, I think it's because of the bits, the texture, the little surprise bites of walnut that you get. Most people will tell you that it's the cream cheese icing (if that's you - be sure to double the icing quantity), but for me, it's the walnuts. 
I've adapted this recipe over the years to have more carrots, and less sugar, though it still has 1 cup of brown sugar, it's considerably less than what it was before! 
It's also so fast and easy to put together, and throw into the oven. 


Ingredients (Serves 8 - 12):

• 2 cups flour 
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 cup of packed brown sugar
• 3 cups of grated carrot 
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup chopped dates 
• 1 cup of vegetable oil 
• 3 eggs lightly beaten 

Cream Cheese Icing** - double this icing quantity, if filling the middle of the cake also. 

• 250 grams of cream cheese 
• 1 cup of icing sugar
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• pumpkin seeds, toasted coconut, chopped nuts or dried fruit to decorate

Preheat the oven to 180•C and prepare a 22cm round baking tin. I grease with oil, and line the base with baking paper. 

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger into a large bowl. 

Stir through the grated carrot, walnuts and dates, till well combined. 

Gently beat the eggs, and add to the dry ingredients along with the cup of oil. Mix well. 

Pour the batter into the baking tin and use a spatula to make sure it is spread evenly. 

Bake for 50 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in tin for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 

To make the icing, beat the cream cheese to soften and sift in the icing sugar. Add the lemon juice and continue beating until smooth. Spread over the cooled cake. 

Decorate with nuts, seeds, coconut or dried fruit. If not eating all at once, store in the fridge. 

** Optional If you want to make the cake even more spectacular, double the icing recipe and cut the cake through the middle horizontally. Fill the middle of the cake with 1/3 of the icing. 

Carrot and Date Loaf

I find baking rather therapeutic, or maybe it's the eating of the baking afterwards. Either way, it's good for the soul, and in my book it's much better for you as a treat than any of the store bought packaged items available. I couldn't decide if I wanted to make a carrot cake or a date loaf. Carrot cake seemed too elaborate for the lunch boxes, and date loaf, well... not quite right. Hence I combined the two.
This is delicious as a snack, dessert or even breakfast; smeared with softened butter, or in keeping with the carrot cake theme delicious spreadable cream cheese. 


Ingredients (Makes 8-10 slices): 

• 100 grams butter, cubed
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup of dates
• 1 cup of cold water
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup or 120 grams of chopped nuts (I've used a combination of walnuts, almonds, cashews) 
• 1 cup of packed grated carrot
• 2 eggs at room temperature

In a saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar, dates, water, ginger and cinnamon. Gently bring to the boil and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally till the dates begin to break down. Remove from the heat and stir in baking soda - get the kids to watch as it fizzes up! Set aside to 20 minutes to cool down. 

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180•C bake or 160•C fanbake. Line a loaf tin (or 12 muffin tray) with baking paper so that there is plenty of overhang. 

In another bowl combine flour, baking powder, nuts and grated carrot. 

Once cooled, quickly beat the eggs into the date mixture, then combine this with the flour mix. Mix till just combined before pouring into the loaf tin (or muffin trays). Bake for 50 minutes (25-30 minutes for muffins) or until a skewer comes out clean. 

Leave in the tray for 10 minutes before removing to a wire cooling rack. Enjoy morning, noon or night served with softened butter, or a lashing of cream cheese for that carrot cake nostalgia. 

White Chocolate and Boysenberry Tart

Here's another recipe to add to my growing tart collection. I find these to make the most satisfying desserts, which are also rather impressive for guests. Plus I find them a lot easier to make than cakes. 

Pastry becomes really easy to make once you've got the basics covered, and the use of a food processor here cuts back on the elbow grease required too. Once you have a good pastry recipe, like this one, it's all about the fillings. This is the part I love as I get to be really creative. Either with the latest crave, or simply using up fruit or chocolate in the fridge. 

Here I've used frozen boysenberries, but you could easily swap for raspberries, which are traditionally paired with both white chocolate and cream cheese. Personally, I like the depth of colour that you get with boysenberries, plus as a child, boysenberry jam was my favourite. Mixing the melted white chocolate with the cream cheese adds a subtle tanginess to the white chocolate, which can be overwhelmingly sweet at times. 

Ingredients (serves 8-12) 

Pastry:

• 1 3/4 cups of plain flour
• 1/4 cup of icing sugar 
• 180 grams cold butter, diced
• 1 egg yolk (reserve white for brushing) 
• 3 tbsp chilled water
• greaseproof paper
• baking beads or rice 

Filling: 

• 175 grams Whittaker's 23% White Chocolate - you can use another brand of white chocolate, but let's face it, Whittaker's is best. 
• 175 grams cream cheese 
• 3 tbsp icing sugar 
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2/3 cup defrosted boysenberries, well drained

Step 1: Make Pastry

Sieve flour and icing sugar together. Put into your food processor with the diced butter and pulse for a few minutes till all of the butter is mixed in and it becomes a breadcrumb texture. 

Next add the egg yolk and chilled water. Pulse again. When it begins to come together, tip out onto a lightly floured board and lightly knead until you have a smooth dough. 

Flatten into a 15cm disc. Cover in cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Pastry is much easier to work with when it is cold. 

Step 2: Bake Pastry 

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Grease a 30cm loose-based fluted tart tin with butter. 

Remove pastry from the fridge and roll out on a piece of greaseproof paper large enough to fit the tart tin. 

Gently lay the pastry over the tin and press into the edges. Use the rolling pin to roll across the top of the tin to trim off any excess pastry. 

Place the greaseproof paper over the pastry and fill the tin with baking beads or uncooked rice (less than a kilo of rice will fill it - reserve the rice afterwards for using again the next time you bake pastry). This holds the pastry in place and stops it both puffing up and from sinking down the sides. 
Chill again for 10 minutes. 

Place in the hot oven and bake for 15 minutes. 

Remove tart from oven and take off the baking paper and rice. Brush with reserved egg white, before returning to the oven for another 15 minutes to finish cooking through. 

Remove from the oven and leave to cool. If pastry has puffed up, then simply gently press it back down while it is still hot. 

Step 3: Prepare the filling

Make a double boiler by putting 1 or 2 cups of water into a small saucepan. Cover the top of the saucepan with a bowl so that no steam can escape (the water should not be touching the bottom of the bowl). 
Bring to the boil. Break the chocolate into the bowl and stir, till melted, then remove from the heat. Allow to cool slightly before adding the remaining ingredients. 

In another bowl, beat the cream cheese with lemon juice and icing sugar till softened and smooth. Stir in the defrosted and drained boysenberries. Finally combine the cream cheese mixture with the melted chocolate. Stir 

Carefully spoon the filling into the tart shell and spread evenly. Chill for 2 - 3 hours before serving. Garnish with extra crushed white chocolate or fresh berries if desired.