Iron Cupcake Earth: Passionfruit Cupcakes

For Iron Cupcake Earth February challenge the them was: Passion. It may seem a bit cheesy that I chose passionfruit cupcakes, but it suited the them, so why not right?!

I think that passionfruits aka. maracuajas are such a spring-summer flavor. I'm fed-up and tired of this cold, wet, snowy weather. I want spring and summer! I want to able to walk around in my summer dress and wear sandals and not have to worry about cold wet shoes. It sure isn't close to summer, but I wanted to have something summery.

I added passionfruit in almost everything. In the cupcake base, the filling and the frosting. Still not enough flavor. It's not so easy getting the intense passionfruit flavor, except the small dollop of cooked passionfruit puree on the top. The cake had a mild fruity flavor. The frosting had a bit more since I added the whole passiofruit flesh of one fruit, next time two.

I planned on baking a passionfruit buttercream frosting, but it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. I had a pastry cream base for the buttercream, but it just didn't work. I'm not sure where the mistake was. Instead I made a whipped cream and cream cheese frosting. Luckily I still had some whipping cream in the fridge and some cream cheese. It turned out to be a great frosting, probably better that the buttercream would have been. I also held back some of the passionfruit pastry cream (before turning it into a disaster) for the filling.

All in all I believe the cupcakes where quite successful, with room for improvement of course. Now I'm going to have to wait for a feedback and suggestions. (They will be eaten for dessert tonight.)

The prizes for ICE

The cupcakes:

Makes 12 cupcakes:

Ingredients:

200 g flour

2 tsp baking powder

3 egg yolks

3 egg whites

pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp vanilla sugar

100 g butter

200 g cream cheese

170 g sugar (divided)

1 passionfruit (the flesh)

3 tbsp passiofruit juice

1. Beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until stiff peaks. gradually add 1/2 of the sugar and vanilla sugar.

2. In another bowl beat the egg yolks, butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract and the other 1/2 of the sugar until smooth and creamy. In another bowl mix the flour and the baking powder. set aside.

3. Add the passionfruit flesh into the egg-butter mixture.

4. Add the flour mixture and the passionfruit juice. alternating.

5. Fold in the whipped egg whites in two portions, gently folding them into the batter. Fold until everything is well mixed. make sure not to fold too much, otherwise the egg whites loose too many air bubbles and they'll loose their volume while baking.

6. Bake at 150 Celcius for about 35 minutes. until golden brown. let them cool 10 minutes in the tin before placing on a wire rack to cool completely.

The Frosting:

200 g whipping cream

1 pck. sahnesteif (whipping cream stabilizer)

2 tbsp. sugar

1 passionfruit (pulp)

6 tbsp. passionfruit juice

1. whip the cream gradually sprinkling in the sahnesteif and sugar. whip until firm peaks. once whipped gently fold in the passiofruit pulp ( 2-3 strokes/folds).

2. Place into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip/nozzle (or another tip/nozzle) and pipe rosettes onto the cupcakes.

3. in a saucepan heat the passionfruit juice and pulp until it starts to thicken. Remove from heat and let it cool.

4. Pour a little bit of the reduced juice on the top of the cupcakes.

Enjoy!