Passionfruit almond cake

Sometimes on a Sunday we go to Splott Market, where you can buy industrial quantities of fruit and veg – anything you can think of, it would seem, comes bagged in a large carrier bag and sold for a pound.  This week I couldn’t believe I could buy a whole carrier bag full of passionfruit for only a pound – but realised I’d never eat them all without finding a way of baking quite a lot of them!  I could’ve tried making passionfruit curd, one of my favourite things to eat, but I already have a large stash of it after my friend Kirsty bought far too much when making her sister Issy’s wedding cake recently.  So instead, I made this very simple, wheat-free cake.  This smelled so delicious out of the oven that we didn’t wait for it to cool before eating, and it was amazing as a warm pudding – but also makes a lovely cake once it’s cooled.

Passionfruit, lime and pistachio layer cake

Our friend Jon’s flatmate Shivaji is moving home to India this week and cooked us a fantastic Indian meal to say goodbye.  I contributed this cake to the feast – made with pistachios and passionfruit pulp in the cake batter, then iced with a mascarpone mixed with passionfruit curd, an amazing find from a recent farmer’s market.  You can buy the curd online or make your own from scratch – Nigella Lawson has a nice recipe on her website.  

Persimmon passionfruit cake

I invented this cake to use some persimmons or Sharon fruit that I'd found in the greengrocers - I've never tried them before, but they have a really unusual taste - a mixture of citrus, spice and tropical fruit.  I puréed the flesh in a blender and added it to an almond cake batter spiced with cinnamon. To fill and ice the cake I made a passionfruit whipped cream, and topped it with thin slices of persimmon. It was totally delicious and I will definitely be making this again!

Lemon, pistachio and passion fruit tart

This year, Lu and I decided to stay in for New Year’s Eve.  I’m sure it’s a sign we’re getting old, but it was absolutely lovely to be at home, just the two of us, after all the hectic socialising over Christmas!  So we cooked a lovely meal for each other: Lu made Thai crab cakes to start, and for a main course we had sea bass with goose fat-roasted potatoes and I made an Asian mango salad to go with it.  This was the dessert – loosely based on a classic Tarte au Citron, I added toasted, ground pistachios to the filling and made a lemon and pistachio sweet pastry.  The whole thing was topped with lemon-infused whipped cream, passion fruit and ground caramelised pistachios.  This was a real show stopper of a dessert – and a very decadent breakfast on New Year’s Day before a walk in the sunshine to blow away the cobwebs! 

Passion fruit, lime and ginger cheesecake

Always a winner - but remember to make it the night before so that it's properly set...