lemon cake with passionfruit syrup

The new Donna Hay Mag got to me on Thursday. Wow what an amazing front cover. Yum!! I think I’ll have to give the chocolate buttermilk cake a go. Congratulations to Donna Hay for this 50th birthday issue. I remember my first Donna Hay was one I picked up outside a newsagents for $2!! It was a wedding issue. It just happened to be around the time I was planning my own wedding, talk about fate, or maybe just coincidence. I think I'm going to have to get on the DH website and check out what issue it was, number that is. I'd love to get my hands on the first ever issue and see how things have changed.

I have decided that I need to be more decisive about this whole blogging thing. I haven’t posted anything in over a month. So, henceforth I shall endeavour to cook and write something at least once a week. Which, in reality means I will need to work really hard to do it once a week.

I haven’t given up on the semi-freddo dream yet. I’ve got the strawberries in the freezer and eggs are coming quite regularly. I am now just waiting on someone who needs to be here when I make it as I am pretty sure this will be a once off deal. Particularly since I had to order like a gazillion strawberries to actually get a good amount that didn’t squish on the way here.

Lemon cake with passionfruit syrup, which apparently appeared first in the 4^th issue of Donna Hay is the gorgeous creation I attempted this afternoon in 100 percent humidity. I have to say it is pretty delicious and can be found in the new 50th issue on page 17.

So it starts off with castor sugar and butter, hmmm sorry no go on either of those, but I did use raw sugar and marg (sorry Donna). Eggs I did have, no sour cream unfortunately but I did happen to have yoghurt (yay for forward planning - or in my case, luck). Yoghurt is my sour cream, goes great with baked potatoes, burritos etc and worked a treat in this cake. I was in luck with lemons (side bar – it takes a whole bunch of lemons to get 1tbs of lemon rind but only 11/2 lemons to get ¼ cups of lemon juice. So what in the heck am I supposed to do with all those rind less lemons?). Flour and baking powder, not a problem, I did have to sift the flour for lumps and make sure I used the good baking powder and not the cheap nasty stuff. Chuck it all in the food processor, I love my food processor and thanks to super glue it still works. Note to self, stacking dishes is hazardous to thin plastic nobby thing-a-majigs essential for electrical appliances to work. Whacked it in the oven and it came out gorgeous and beautiful, I almost cried.

Next came the passionfruit syrup. This step was easy as; passionfruit pulp, sugar and water, no worries mate.

Serving it up for dessert with whipped UHT cream (nice!!)