Butter cake with passionfruit cream cheese frosting

Butter cake with passionfruit cream cheese frosting

This is a gorgeous moist cake - it's dangerously good and so simple! The passionfruit icing just finishes it beautifully. I love passionfruits, I think I've grown a vine in almost every house I've lived in. At the moment I am training one over a triangle shaped frame in our garden, so when it's covered in the leafy green folage, Mr 3 shall have a passionfruit tent, to crawl through, lie under or read a book in.... maybe even picnic on a slice of cake in there too! 

TM Method

Ingredients:

Cake:

440gms raw sugar (to process to caster sugar)

250gms butter

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

4 eggs

340gms self raising flour

25gms corn flour

220gms milk

Icing:

250gm pkt cream cheese - remove from fridge 20 mins prior to soften

Pulp from 2 small passionfruits or 1 large (if using frozen passionfruit use 2 ice cubes)

220gms icing sugar

Method

Cake:

Preheat oven to 160*c fan forced.

Grease a 22cm springform baking tin with butter and line the bottom with baking paper***.

Add 440gms raw sugar to TM bowl and process 5 secs | sp 10.

Add 250gms butter, bring together 5 secs | sp 6.

Add butterfly, beat 30 secs | sp 4.

Add 4 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla bean paste, beat 10 secs | sp 3.

Add 340gms self raising flour and 25gms corn flour and 220gms milk and mix 40 secs | sp 6.

Pour into a prepared springform baking tin and bake for 45-60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean from the centre.

Allow to sit in cake pan for 5 mins and then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely. 

Icing:

Scoop passionfruit pulp from fruit or put frozen cubes into TM bowl mill 40 secs | sp 9. (Omit this step and leave seeds whole if you prefer, just add passionfruit and continue with recipe below)

Roughly cut cream cheese into 2cm cubes with spatula and add to TM bowl with 220gms icing sugar and whip 40 secs | sp 4.

Spread generously onto cake with spatula once cake has completely cooled. Store in air tight container on the bench, or in the fridge. If you store in the fridge, allow cake to come back to room temp before eating (this will ensure the texture is lovely and soft).

Conventional method:

Ingredients:

Cake:

2 cups caster sugar

250gms butter

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

4 eggs

2 cups self raising flour

1/3 cup corn flour

1 cup milk

Icing:

250gm pkt cream cheese - remove from fridge 20 mins prior to soften

Pulp from 2 small passionfruits or 1 large (if using frozen passionfruit use 2 ice cubes)

1 cup icing sugar

Method:

Cake:

Preheat oven to 160*c fan forced.

Grease a 22cm springform baking tin with butter and line the bottom with baking paper***.

Cream butter & sugar in mix master or with electric beaters.

Add vanilla bean paste.

Add eggs one at a time and beat at a low speed until combined.

Gradually add dry ingredients plus milk into mixture and beat until well combined.

Pour into a prepared springform baking tin and bake for 45-60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean from the centre.

Allow to sit in cake pan for 5 mins and then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Icing:

Crush passionfruit in pestle and mortar (or you can leave whole if desired) add cream cheese and icing sugar to mix master or use electric beaters and mix until combined. Spread generously onto cake with spatula once cake has completely cooled. Store in air tight container on the bench, or in the fridge. If you store in the fridge, allow cake to come back to room temp before eating (this will ensure the texture is lovely and soft).

***the easiest way to get the baking paper the right size is to put the baking tin on a square of baking paper, draw a ring around the outside with a marker and cut it out with scissors. You will have a precise circle which will sit nicely inside the tin and mean your cake will come out easily.

Enjoy!!!

Sugar Cookies

When I was 21 I packed up everything, quit my job, sold my house and went on an adventure. I landed at JFK airport and after a week in New York City, flew to San Francisco where I spent 7 months as a nanny to four very delightful and very busy boys, they were 9,7,4 & 18ths at the time. One day, when I was grocery shopping in Draegers, I found a cute little cookie cutter set, which I thought was gorgeous, so I bought it and tucked it away in my suitcase. Years later when I finally opened it, there was a recipe in the tin for 'sugar cookies'. It soon became ritual at Easter time to make these cookies using the tiny shaped cutters I bought in the States. Over the years I have slightly changed the recipe and now converted it to the Thermomix. It's a great recipe for kids baking, as it rolls out well and is great for cookie cutters. The dough is very forgiving and is easily able to be brought together again numerous times after it has been used to cut out the first lot of shapes.

I think of my time in the Bay Area whenever I make these. The four cheeky boys are now handsome young men and just as delightful as they were as children. 

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:
125 grams Butter
200 grams sugar, (raw, caster or white)
300 grams plain flour
1 egg
half vanilla bean, or a dash of vanilla essence
1 pinch salt1/4 teaspoon baking powder 

1. If you are using raw sugar, mill for 5 seconds to make caster sugar.
2. Add butter and sugar to TM bowl, cream for 20 secs | sp 4
3. Scrape vanilla seeds from vanilla pod into the bowl (if  using) add rest of the ingredients and bring together 10 secs | sp 6, scrape down sides and then mix for a further 10 secs | sp 6  again.
4. Turn to closed lid and mix on wheat setting for 20 seconds - mixture should resemble bread crumbs but wont be brought together entirely.
5. Tip out onto Thermomat or a floured board and gently bring together into a ball. Put into a zip lock bag or wrap in glad wrap and rest in the fridge for minimum of an hour.
6. Take dough from fridge cut into into 4 and keep out 1/4 of the dough, putting the rest back into the fridge. Roll out on a floured board with a rolling pin to approximately 5 ml thickness. Cut shapes and place onto a cookie tray lined with baking paper ready to bake. 
7. Cookies can be decorated with a scattering of sugar or coloured cashou balls or left plain. 
8. I use a small start cutter and get approximately 80 cookies out of a batch. Bak for 5-7 minutes, 180 degrees on a fan bake and cool on a wire rack.

Note: For a larger cookie cutter, your cooking time may vary and need to be adjusted accordingly. The star cutter I use is 5cms wide. 

If you are doing different sized shapes, try to keep similar sizes on the same tray or you will have some smaller ones burning while the larger ones are not quite done. 

We made a batch this afternoon & had our very own tea party.