FEIJOA CAKE with Lemon & Macadamia Icing

May 1st, 2018

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When life gives you feijoas, make jam, chutney, crumble, and cake! With five feijoa trees in our backyard, plus bags from my Dad’s earlier crop, I can see green in the fruit bowl for months. Even with the children having regular “feijoa sessions” at the kitchen bench – cut, scoop, eat, repeat – I still have buckets of fruit to process.

I have lost count of the number of times I have made the cake I share today. It is incredibly adaptable, sometimes I sweeten with autumn-scented honey from our neighbour’s beehives, other times golden sugar. I have made it gluten-free on occasion, topped with a tart nut-based icing. And then again, drizzled with chocolate for my daughter’s birthday.

I have included some of these variations in the recipe, including two icing options. The lemon and macadamia icing is something a little different. However, you do need a relatively powerful food processor to create smooth(ish) icing. The second option above, good old ganache, matches rather beautifully with herbaceous feijoa.

If you fancy taking this to the next level into the layer cake realm – double the recipe and bake two cakes, sandwich with 200g mascarpone, sweetened with honey and vanilla to taste. Finish with ganache dripping down the sides. This was my daughter’s exact request for her birthday cake recently.

FEIJOA CAKE with Lemon & Macadamia Icing

This recipe was inspired by a simple feijoa cake my friend Nadia makes every autumn. It is quick to prepare and a great way to use up feijoa that have surpassed their best. If you don't have these little green flavour bombs flowing nearby, use 1 cup chopped ripe pear plus lemon zest for extra zing. Not quite the same, but still delicious.

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 35 minutes mins

Ingredients

• 100 g room temperature butter cubed
• 1/3 cup sugar or 4 tablespoons honey
• 2 free-range eggs
• ½ cup yoghurt
• 1 cup scooped feijoa flesh
• 1 ¼ cups white flour gluten-free: use 1 cup rice flour and ¼ cup tapioca flour
• ½ cup desiccated coconut or extra flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda

Lemon & Macadamia Icing

• ½ cup macadamia or cashews
• 2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil
• 1-2 tablespoons honey
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon hot water

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Line and grease a 20cm round cake tin.
• Place the butter, sugar or honey, eggs, yoghurt and feijoa flesh into a food processor and blend to combine. Add the flour, coconut, and baking powder and soda. Pulse half a dozen times until just combined. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 35 minutes until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool on a cake rack. See below for icing options.
• This cake is wonderfully moist and will keep for up to three days stored in an airtight container in the pantry.

Notes

Lemon Icing - There is a stall at our local market that I search out every autumn for their freshly cracked macadamias. A favourite treat for my littlest, so I have to be quick to save some for this icing.
Combine the ingredients in a food processor or blender. Blitz into a smooth-ish icing. Depending on the machine, this can take 1-3 minutes, scrape down the sides often and add an extra tablespoon of lemon juice to loosen if needed. Pour on to the cooled cake, spreading out to the edges. Decorate with desiccated coconut.

(OR) Chocolate Ganache

• ¼ cup (60ml) cream or coconut cream
• 100g dark chocolate, broken into squares

Heat the cream in a small saucepan until bubbles appear on the surface. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate. Sit for 30 seconds then use a spatula to stir until smooth. Pour over the cooled cake, using a knife to spread evenly, letting some drip down the sides of the cake.