Passionfruit butter cake

I'm trying to getting into the good habit of baking for our daily breakfast.

Passionfruit butter cake 
(yield 9X5" loaf tin)

Ingredients/ Method:
250g self raising flour, sifted
250g good quality unsalted butter, softened
185g castor sugar (I reduced it to 170g)
170g whole eggs, at room temperature (about 3 eggs)
100ml passionfruit juice (Only left with 2 passionfruit and yield 55gm juice, so added 45ml milk) 

1) Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Prepare lined loaf tin and set aside.
2)In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar on medium high speed for about 5 mins until pale and fluffy.
3) Add beaten eggs to butter mixture in 6 additions, ensuring that each addition is well incorporated before adding the next addition.
4) Add 1/3rd of flour to the egg-butter mixture on low speed till well incorporated. Next add in passionfruit juice to batter till well incorporated.
5) Add another 1/3rd of flour to the batter till well incorporated. Add the milk and mix till well incorporated. Lastly add the remaining flour into the batter and mix till well incorporated.
6) Scrape the side and bottom with a spatula for any loose ingredients.
7) Bake for about 50-60 min at 180 deg C.
8) Check doneness when skewer come out clean after inserted into cake.
9) Allow cake to cool completely on wire rack.

Passionfruit Swiss Roll

This week has not been a good week for me. I'd not been feeling well since last weekend after Zak's birthday celebration. First came the body ache and fever, and followed by gastric. I didn't know that gastric pain can be so excruciating, and there's this nagging cramp every now and then. Hopefully it'll self-recover by next week.

Seeing that I go to bed much earlier than before, and knowing that I'd been to the doctor, my boy appears to be very concerned. On couple of nights, he would come to my bed side and ask me whether I'm feeling better and stroked my forehead, chest and stomache. Ohh... whatever pain there is would have been soothed. Just today, after hearing that I'm still not well, he asked me to go to the doctor again "...and if I still don't recover, can see the doctor 1000 times". So innocent and yet so lovable and touched.

Regardless, I've been thinking of baking something else to contribute to this month Aspiring Bakers , to use up all the egg whites and to make something out of the 3 lemons that have been sitting in my fridge for a long time.

I'm glad that I've at least accomplished baking something today. Not only that, I overcome my fear of making a swiss roll - fear that it will not roll up at all, fear that it will crack and break mid-way, fear that it will be too dry, etc. I'm also more ready to try it because I got a proper sheet pan (which I just bought and used it to make Zak's Strawberry long bus cake), and there's a highly recommended recipe for sponge cake/ swiss roll ( which I'd also used it for Zak's Strawberry long bus cake).




Afterall, the rolling is not as daunting as it seems to be *phew*. And I'm satisfied with the texture and appearance, this being my first try. You can be assured that I'll be trying out other flavours and designs in time to come.

Passing the pulps through the strain to extract the juice

Passionfruit Sponge Cake
(Recipe adapted & slightly modified from Kitchen Corner)

Ingredients/ Method:

A) 100g egg yolk (about 6 eggs)
20g caster sugar

B) 160g egg white (about 4.5 eggs)
75g caster sugar

40g unsalted butter
55g plain flour (I substituted with cake flour)
2tbsp passionfruit juice (extracted from 2 passionfruits, see above picture)

1. Prepare a baking tray (11" x 14") lined with baking paper. Melt the butter than set a side to cool.
2. Using electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks with sugar in a double boiler until thicken and pale.
3. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with caster sugar until stiff peak.
4. Fold the egg yolks into the egg whites then gently fold in the sifted flour.
5. Pour some mixture (4) into a clean bowl then mix in the melted butter and passionfruit juice until well combine. Pour back into the mixture of (4) and mix gently until everything well combine.
6. Pour the batter into prepared baking tray and spread evenly.
7. Bake at 190 deg C for 12 minutes. Be careful not to over bake it.
8. Remove the cake from the baking tray immediately when it is out from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Tear out the side of the baking paper and let it completely cool down and ready to use.

Passionfruit Cream
1/2 cup whipping cream
3 passionfruits

1. Whisk whipping cream until stiff peak.
2. Add in passionfruit pulps into whipped cream, one at a time until well combined.
3. Stored in fridge until ready to use.

How to Roll
1. When the cake is cooled, removed the parchment paper.
2. Put a new piece of parchment paper on the cooled cake. Gently turn the cake using another wire rack (or using the sheet pan).
3. Spread passionfruit cream on the entire cake.
4. Putting a clean dry kitchen towel under the cake makes rolling easier.
5. Lift up the parchment paper and roll the cake about 1 inch and hold to set the position. Using 2 hands, start to roll the cake using the parchment paper, and when in rolling motion use one hand to lift up the kitchen towel and continue to roll till the end.
6. Tighten the rolled cake and place the cake seam side down.
7. Fold the 2 sides of the parchment paper (like a candy sweet) to hold the rolled cake and put in the fridge to set the shape.



I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #5: Fruity March hosted by Jess of Bakericious.

This cake is very soft and fluffy, and the passionfruit cream gives a refreshing taste! Do give it a try :))