Coconut Cake with Passionfruit Syrup

I have the same DISCUSSION with mum at least once a week. “Before you go to the supermarket PLEASE check the ingredients in the pantry/fridge”. Mum was making a curry for dinner and stumbles in with 8 bags of groceries, panting heavily. I begin to unpack and find 2 tins of coconut cream. “That’s funny” I think to myself - we have 3 tins already! Mum thinks our pantry is like Mary Poppin’s carpet bag - room for everything and anything - between Mary and Mum, there’s nothing you won’t find!!

So, with coconut cream on my mind, I did the only thing I could - baked a cake. In fact, I killed two birds with one stone, and used the pile of passionfruit Mum had also accumulated.

I’m not much of a cake baker, but I’m certainly a cake eater - my sisters too! I love a simple ‘melt n mix’, wet into dry, 2-step cake recipe. For me, cake baking is as an opportunity to use overripe fruit or the unnecessary amount of groceries that mum brings home. I like to call it ‘sustainable cooking’!

Ingredients

125gm unsalted butter

1 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 ½ cup self raising flour

250gm light sour cream

½ cup desiccated coconut

1/3 cup full fat milk

Passionfruit syrup:

1 cup fresh passionfruit pulp

1 cup light coconut cream

½ cup condensed milk

Method

Preheat oven to 180˚C. Grease and line an 11 cm by 25 cm loaf pan with non-stick baking paper.

Beat butter and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Transfer mixture to a large bowl. Stir in flour, desiccated coconut, sour cream and milk until smooth. Spread mixture into pan.

Bake cake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Stand cake in pan for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the passionfruit syrup, combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and heat until hot. Stand for 10 minutes.

Pour the syrup over the cake and spread it out to the edges. Allow the syrup to drip down the edges. Serve.