Recipe | Passionfruit meringue mini cakes

Ingredients

1 batch of vanilla cake (see below)

1 batch of passionfruit curd (see below)

1 batch of meringue (see below)

Edible flowers, I use pansies

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Method

Follow the instructions below to make the vanilla mini cakes.

Once the mini cakes are cool, use an apple corer or paring knife to remove the centre from each cake. Use a teaspoon to fill the centres with passionfruit curd.

Prepare the meringue. Place a 1A or open circle nozzle in a piping bag, fill with the meringue and pipe it on top of each mini cake.

Use a blowtorch to toast the meringue. Drizzle more passionfruit curd over the top and press in an edible flower.

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Vanilla cake

Here we go, time for a lot of cake. Give this recipe a whirl, and I bet you it will become your new go-to recipe.

Serves: 12–14

Makes: one 20cm (8-inch) cake or 10 mini cakes

Prep time: 30 minutes

Bake time: 40–45 minutes for a 20cm cake or 20–22 minutes for mini cakes

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter, softened

250g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs

225g plain flour

14g baking powder

200g milk, warmed

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Method

Preheat your oven to 150°C fan bake. Spray the tin(s) of your choice with oil and line with baking paper.

In the bowl of your stand mixer or with an electric beater, cream the butter, icing sugar and vanilla essence. Once the mixture is light and fluffy, add both eggs at once and beat until they are incorporated.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and give it another mix.

Sift the flour and baking powder together, then add to the mixer bowl. Turn on the mixer to a medium speed and pour in all of the milk. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again, then mix until the batter has just come together.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin(s).

Bake time will depend on what you are making and what tin it is in. A 20cm (8-inch) round tin will take about 40–45 minutes. Mini tins will take 20–22 minutes. You can tell it’s ready when a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Leave the large cake to cool in the tin(s) for 20 minutes and the mini cakes for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely before icing and decorating.

Mini cake tips

• Place the mini tins onto a baking tray so it is easy to take them out of the oven all at once.
• Once your cake batter is ready, spray the mini tins with oil again to make sure they are well coated.
• Use two spoons or a retractable ice cream scoop to get the cake batter into each mini tin. Fill each tin no more than three-quarters full with batter.

Mini loaves

• The mini loaf tray I use is slightly smaller than one of my mini cake tins which is why I get 12 mini loaves rather than 10.
• Line the mini loaf tins and fill each tin no more than ¾ full of batter.

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Passionfruit curd

Ingredients

100g unsalted butter

100g caster sugar

90g passionfruit juice (strain and set the seeds aside)

10g lemon juice

2 eggs

Note: it is 90g of passionfruit juice once the seeds have been removed, so the 90g is just pure passionfruit juice.

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Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once melted, add the caster sugar, juices and eggs to the saucepan. Give it a good whisk to combine.

Continue to whisk the curd over medium heat for 10–15 minutes, until it thickens.

Remove from the heat and pour the hot curd through a sieve into a container. Add the passionfruit seeds back into the curd and stir to combine. Cover the surface of the curd with cling film, so it doesn’t form a skin. Leave to cool for half an hour on the bench, then pop it into the fridge to cool completely.

Once cold, it will be nice and thick, ready to use. Store in the fridge for up to one week.

Baker’s tips

• Frozen passionfruit works well. Just defrost and use as normal.
• If fresh passionfruit isn’t available and you can’t buy it frozen, the next option is to use passionfruit syrup sold in supermarkets as a dessert topping. The base of the syrup is sugar with passionfruit flavouring, so omit the sugar in the recipe and use the syrup instead.
• Quantities using passionfruit syrup: 100g unsalted butter; 150g passionfruit syrup (strain and set the seeds aside); 10g lemon juice; 2 eggs.

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Meringue

Ingredients

120g egg whites

240g caster sugar

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Method

French meringue for kisses

Preheat your oven to 100°C fan bake. Line two baking trays with baking paper. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the egg whites and caster sugar (yes, add the sugar all at once!). Beat on medium-high speed for 15 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl halfway through, then continue beating until the time is up.

Place a 1A or open circle nozzle in a piping bag (no nozzle is fine if you don’t have one). Fill the piping bag with the meringue mixture and pipe 2cm kisses onto the prepared trays.

Bake at 100°C for 1 hour. Turn the oven off and leave them to cool in the oven overnight.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Swiss meringue to pipe onto mini cakes

Place the egg whites and caster sugar in a medium stainless-steel or heat proof bowl.

Fill a medium-sized pot one-third full of water. Place the pot over medium heat on the stovetop and sit the heatproof bowl containing the egg whites and caster sugar on top. Take care to ensure the bowl does not touch the water.

Whisk the egg whites and caster sugar continuously. Once the mixture has started to warm up, the sugar granules will dissolve. Carefully dip your finger into the meringue mixture and rub it between your fingers. If you can feel that the grainy sugar has dissolved, it is ready to take off the heat.

Add the mixture into the bowl of your stand mixer and whip on medium high speed for 5 minutes. When the meringue is thick, it’s ready to use. Place a 1A or open circle nozzle in a piping bag. Fill the bag with the meringue mixture. Pipe onto your mini cakes and torch with a blowtorch.

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Other recipes from Sweet Stuff — 

Jam donut cake

Apple crumble