Passionfruit Cheesecake

I have loved passionfruit from an early age. This is not exactly shocking information, as I have met few who aren't impressed by its intense acidic, almost perfumed flavour. My own love affair began in my grandmother's garden, for there she grew a sizeable passionfruit vine, a luxury that seems too incredible to fathom. Each year she would carefully wait until the fruit had wrinkled enough to show it was at its peak flavour, then she would scoop out the inside, adding ample sugar to further enhance the flavour, and then can it in small glass jars. These we would wrap carefully and pack into our suitcases to come back across the Pacific Ocean, so that when we were looking for a taste of heaven we could add a spoonful to a scoop of simple vanilla ice cream and thus transform it into something worthy of royalty.

I still get excited whenever I see anything with passionfruit flavour, and I have noticed that Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood always give thumbs up to any dessert given to them that contains this marvellous fruit. The only real drawback is its expense - you can't exactly grow it in Scotland, and it is quite pricey if you need the dozen or so fruit required for any recipe.

Sometimes, you just have to treat yourself. My eye had always been caught by a Nigella Lawson recipe in How to be a Domestic Goddess for Passionfruit Cheesecake. I can't say I'm a huge fan of cheesecakes that veer away from the traditional New York variety, but this one seemed to be a guaranteed win: Nigella, cheesecake, passionfruit - three strong points in its favour. So finally I added 10 passionfruit to my online shopping order and waited for them to arrive so I could try it out.

I was all ready except for one thing: the springform tin. I had accidentally left mine at work, so I decided to improvise with a tart tin with a removable base. On went the fake Pam to ensure success in the cheesecake's removal:

And into a bag went some digestives. No graham crackers here, peeps.

After I'd taken out my aggression, they looked like this.

Then in went butter. The recipe didn't call for any sugar, but I usually use some and in retrospect think I should have thrown a tablespoon or so in. Live and learn.

The crumbled mix looked like so.

And into the tin it went, pressed down with the bottom of the glass.

Now, I HAD ordered 10 passionfruits, but my husband saw the bag and thought "oooh, I should have some of my 5 a day!" and stole a couple. He claims I should have told him they were for a recipe. I think he should have actually put away the shopping when it came and should have known that a bag of 10 passionfruit, a quantity I have never come close to purchasing before, would naturally be for a special recipe. Thankfully I only needed 7 for the filling itself, so his hide was saved.

So, so pretty. So, so tasty.

And into the big processor they went. I would have used the smaller bowl, but I can't find its blade right now in my chaotic kitchen of doom.

A quick whirrr and they were looking more juicy and less pulpy.

So I whipped up some cream cheese.

Added some sugar.

Mixed some more.

Then added 3 yolks (one at a time, stressing myself with the separating of eggs)

They made it a bit golden.

Then 3 whole eggs went in too.

And were stirred in at this point as it was getting a bit too bubbly for my liking.

The fruit was strained in with some lime juice.

I realise now I could have just added some bottled passionfruit juice here, as it's not too hard to find here and would have been cheaper and easier (and just as flavourful, I think). Next time.

Now just dive in and drink it all...

NO! Wait, I was kidding! GET OUT OF THERE!

Instead it went into the tart case...and there was waaaaay too much, as it is way shallower than a springform tin, so I made some ramekins and a teacup as well. Once they were in the oven I added boiling water to the pan to make a "bain marie". Who was this Marie, and why did she like baths of boiling water?

After a while, the small ones came out. They wiggled like jelly in the middle at the time of removal - this ensures they don't overcook. And oh, yeah, I kind of messed one up when I took it out. Still tasted fine.

Then their mother came out to cool.

They went in the fridge while my husband went out to buy me more passionfruit and thus prevent our divorce. Once he got back, I carefully removed the cheesecake from the tin, ensuring a perfect finish on the cake.

Err...when in doubt, just throw lots of fresh fruit on top.

No, those aren't frog spawn, they are little pieces of heaven, kids.

AND IT'S MINE!!!!!!!!!!!! ALLL MINE!!!!

I'll add the recipe later, when I can move again.

Victoria Sponge

It's official now - I'm British! And for you BNP candidates out there, don't worry, I'm of UK ancestry so you needn't shout "go back where you come from!" because, well, I have.

It seemed only proper to mark the occasion with suitable cuisine. On the day of my citizenship ceremony (the mention of which draws curious looks from Brits and solemn nods of understanding from all my North American friends) I was served tea and biscuits by my fellow countrymen. We feasted on steak and ale pie that evening, and then I decided to bake a couple things for work: a lemon drizzle cake and a Victoria Sponge.

I'd never actually made a simple Victoria Sponge before - I'd done variations of the recipe by adding lemon zest to the batter and using a buttercream icing, but I figured it was time to do the real thing, the traditional simple sponge with nothing but jam and cream to fill it. The one thing I did do, under Nigella's urging, was add vanilla to the batter. I mean, what cake doesn't taste nicer with a bit of vanilla added?

I did the usual creaming method of my house: batter fridge cold butter with a wooden spoon until it's pretty much creamed.

Who are these people with room temperature butter anyway? Yes, I always end up with a lump or two in my creamed butter, but that's a small price to pay for not having to play the lottery game of softening butter in the microwave.

Meh, good enough.

In went the eggs once by one with a spoonful of the flour mix. The super secret is to make sure the recipe has a bit of cornflour in with the regular flour - this keeps the cake moist. You know how people mix box cake mixes with instant pudding mix? Same idea - instant pudding is basically cornflour and sugar.

The spoonful of flour is meant to stop the mixture from curdling. It works half the time with me - I think possibly because my butter is too cold still.

It didn't work this time.

It's ok, it'll still rise and be just fine. We've moved on to my favourite spatula here as the batter is getting nice and, well, batter-y. Not battery - that's a serious matter.

In went the rest of the flour mix.

Plus a splash of milk to help make it runny enough to spread easily in the pan.

Mmmm...cake batter. Now to restrain myself so that I don't eat the whole bowlful.

Instead it went into these matching, lined cake tins.

Well, most of it anyway. I am human.

When they came out, they looked like this (minus the mark where I put in the knife to see if it was done).

It helps when baking them not to accidentally tilt one on top of the other one so that a layer bakes as thin as a cookie on one side and thick as a Gideon's bible on the other.

Not that I've done that.

Ahem.

As soon as they were out I ran a knife around the side and turned it out to peel off the paper...

Then put it in some foil.

This foil parcel was then put straight into the freezer. This keeps all the moisture in, (dry cake = bad cake) and keeps the sponge from falling apart during the decorating later. It only takes a couple hours for the cake to thaw out, so you don't need to take it out that much more before serving. Or, if you are doing a buttercream icing, you can seal in all the moisture by icing it while the cake is still frozen, ensuring a moist cake.

So, the day of the delivery I just unwrapped it...

Then flipped it so that the flat side was on top for easy spreading of filling.

On one cake went a layer of seedless raspberry jam. I leave a gap around the side as inevitably the two layers get smooshed later when folk are slicing the cake and I don't want too much filling to spurt out the sides.

On the other side went some freshly whipped cream.

Then the two sides met. It looks a bit sad here, but that way people know it's homemade.

A sprinkling of icing sugar was put on top to complete it all, and into the office it went. I did this at around 8 am, and I confess the cake was still a bit cold (though not frozen) when my enthusiastic colleague cut into it at 10:30am. The staff room was quite cool, and my commute was icy, so it had been somewhat slowed in its thawing. By the time the rest of the staff tucked in after lunch, it had all reached room temperature and much swooning was done. They were even kind enough to give me my own Union Jack flag for my desk along with a photo of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II, God save her.

Victoria Sponge (from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess)

225g unsalted butter
225g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs

200g self-raising flour
25g cornflour (note you can use 225g self-raising flour instead - Nigella believes the addition of corn-flour makes for a "lighter, more tender sponge".3-4 tablespoons milk

a few Tablespoons seedless raspberry jam

as much double cream as you fancy, softly whipped

A few Tablespoons icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C and line two 8" round cake tins

1) Cream butter and sugar

2) Add eggs and vanilla one by one, each with a spoonful of the flour

3) stir in rest of flour

4) add as much milk as needed to get a smooth, easily spreadable batter

5) Evenly divide batter between two tins, and bake until lightly brown and a knife comes out cleanish (anywhere from 18-35 minutes, depending on your oven)

6) Run a knife around the edge of the tins to release cakes then flip out to remove paper

7) Wrap layers individually in foil and freeze until day required

8) Unwrap layers with flat side up, then spread one side with jam and the other with cream then smoosh them together. Sift icing sugar over the top and let sit out until thawed (a couple hours at room temperature).

Lemon Drizzle Cake

As you may have guessed, I do a fair amount of baking, but there is one recipe that people request more than any other: lemon drizzle cake. It's a fairly simple cake, lifted to incredible heights by the fact that you soak the cake in a syrup made simply of lemon juice and icing sugar. It is lovely both paired with a cup of tea or presented as pudding, always feeling light thanks to the citrus content.

On this occasion I was making it as a thank you for special someone who hemmed my husband's trousers and gave us chocolate for our Rocky Road. My children had been excited to see me getting out baking ingredients, and were disappointed when I immediately explained the cake was for someone else. However, when I explained that person was the one who made our recent Rocky Road possible, they were in full agreement that said person deserved cake!

I got started once the kids were in bed, meaning everything was not at room temperature. 

This was one hard block of butter. If you are skilled, you might manage to just soften it slightly on a low setting in your microwave, but I always end up with a molten crater and hard edges when I try doing that, so instead...

I beat the butter into submission. It took a good few minutes, but eventually the friction did the job just fine.

Then in went the caster sugar. Granulated sugar in the USA has the same consistency as caster sugar here...why is that? Granulated sugar here is slightly chunkier.

Ah, nice and creamed.

Then lemon zest was added so it looked like this.

Then the eggs went in one at a time. I used to just always add the eggs all at once, in spite of instructions saying to do it one at a time. Then I read an article in Cooks Illustrated that said you do in fact get a superior cake if you do them one at a time and you'll spend less time overall mixing it (it takes fewer strokes to do it one at a time). So now, when I remember to, I do them one at a time. It's all very scientific here in the Calwell kitchen.

At this point the mixture looked a bit curdled and gross. That's normal in my experience.

I trusted myself that it would get better.

And saying a small prayer, added the flour.

Once that improved it, in went some milk. The photo at the top shows a whole milk container, but it actually contained semi skimmed milk, as my other milk jug split slightly, spilling milk all over my stairwell. I managed to save enough to decant into the jug above and have been fooling everybody with it since. Annoyingly it was also just after the stair cleaners had visited.

There - a nice, smoothish batter. It went into a lined loaf tin, but I forgot about taking a photo until it was in the oven, and I'm not about to show you what the inside of my oven looks like.

It ain't pretty, I can tell you that.

While it baked, I juiced a couple of lemons. At the moment, this piece of plastic is one of my son's favourite toys.  Toddlers...

On went some icing sugar...and some caster sugar, since I ran out of icing sugar. Oops.

I stirred it to combine it and then heated it briefly in the microwave to help most of it dissolve. If it doesn't all dissolve, that's fine - it leaves a nice crusty sugary glaze on the top when that happens.

Out came the cake.

I then took a toothpick (skewers work better, or simply a sharp knife will do) and poked holes all over the top.

Like so.

Then I poured on the syrup.

And it oozed in all over the top, drifting down the sides. I then left it overnight to cool and soak all the juices through.

The next day I brought it in and presented it to my colleague. She immediately announced that a whole cake was too much for her, that she would end up eating it in one sitting.

So instead, she chopped it in half.

Because it's totally ok to eat half of this cake. Not that I would know what that's like. Ahem.

She gave half of it to another colleague who gets really excited about my baking. REALLY excited.

You can see how the syrup drenched the middle of the cake here - heaven on a plate I tell you.

Nigella, you're the best.

Lemon Drizzle Cake (adapted from recipe for Lemon Syrup Loaf Cake in How to be a Domestic Goddess)

Preheat oven to 180C/350F

125g butter
175g caster sugar 
2 eggs
zest 1 lemon
175g self-raising flour
4 Tbsp milk

for syrup:
juice 2 lemons
100g powdered sugar

1 loaf tin - preferably lined for ease of cake removal

Put butter in large bowl.  Beat and mash and mix with wooden spoon until fairly fluffy.  Add sugar and beat and mash and mix until a lighter shade of fluffy and even consistency throughout.Add zest & eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly.  Fold in flour then mix in milk.  Pour into loaf tin and bake.  Test after 45 minutes (knife should come out clean). Meanwhile, heat lemon juice and sugar until sugar is dissolved (either on the hob or in short bouts in the microwave).  Once the cake is out of the oven, punch loads of holes in it with a knife or skewer and pour the syrup over the top.  Leave to cool in the tin so all the juices are absorbed fully.