Mrs BC's House of Chaos: Passionfruit cupcakes with passionfruit curd.

My Mother in Law came to stay in the holidays, and bought a bounty of passionfruit from her garden. She has a bit of a sweet tooth, so we had a bit of a passion fruit festival for afternoon tea! Feel free to use your favourite vanilla cupcake recipe, or even a packet one; just mix in 1 cup of fresh passionfruit pulp.

Passionfruit Cupcakes with Passionfruit Curd

Passionfruit Cupcakes

Ingredients

125g butter
1 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
2 eggs
2 cups of plain flour
half a teaspoon of bicarb soda
1 and a half teaspoons of baking powder
half a cup of milk
1 cup of passionfruit pulp
Thick cream to serve

Method

In a food processor or cake mixer, (or by hand if you are strong and brave) mix the butter, sugar and vanilla essence together until smooth and creamy looking.
Mix in the eggs, combine well.
Mix in the milk, combine well.
Mix the flour, bicarb and baking powder separately then mix into the butter/sugar/egg combo. (If you cannot be fussed with this, just use self raising flour instead. Adding this ratio of bicarb and baking powder to plain flour turns it into SR flour. I like to do it myself because sometimes the SR flour has sat on the shelf for a while and isn't so SR any more)
Finally, stir in the passionfruit pulp, seeds and all.
Place equally into lined cupcake tins (recipe makes 24 min cupcakes or 12 regular) and bake for 20 - 30 minutes until the top is lightly golden and springs back when you press it with your finger.
Place on a rack to cool.

Passionfruit Curd

Ingredients

125g butter
3/4 cup of castor sugar
1 cup of passionfruit pulp
4 egg yolks

Method

Combine everything in a saucepan over low heat and stir constantly for 10 minutes or so until thickened. Place in an air tight container and refrigerate until cool. It's like Lemon Curd, but not, and it wont keep as long. Eat within 4 days at the most.

Assembly

Use a spoon to divot a round wedge out of the top of each cake, making the cupcake into a small cup. Don't hollow it out completely, just enough for a dollop of curds and cream.
Dollop in a spoon of passionfruit curd.
Dollop in a spoon of cream.
Dollop a spoon of passionfruit curd over that.
Put the lid of the cake back on.
Arrange on a serving plate. If you want to be fancy (and you are cooking for your mother in law, so go for it) sprinkle with powdered sugar and decorate with a few edible flowers.

I think this curd would be delicious on banana bread, but it was eaten very quickly (I suspect from the container with a spoon) so I guess I'll just have to make another batch to find out.....