Passion Fruit Yogurt Pound Cake

Have you tasted Passion Fruit before? If you have, I'm sure you know it's really sour to eat on its own. But it has this really great aroma that it's quite unique. I remembered the first time I tasted passion fruit was in Hawaii, like 6 years ago. It did not give me a deep impression at all, such little juice and so tart in taste. It's just that it has this strong fragrant and aromatic scent.

My husband and I happened to see passion fruits on sale in the wet market a couple weeks back. We bought half a dozen back home, trying to recapture the taste experience we had before. As expected, our face went all shrivel up from the sourness of the fruit, haha! And so I thought why not make use of this wonderful aroma from this unique fruit and make it into a desert that everyone can enjoy.Note that passion fruit need to be ripe before you can use it, meaning it's exterior is all wrinkle like a prune, then you are sure the fruit is good to go. ;) I let mine seat for almost 2 weeks before it was fully ripen.
And so, I went through my pantry and decided to make a passion fruit yogurt pound cake.

Ingredients for Passion Fruit Yogurt Pound Cake:
150g plain flour
160g caster sugar
1 ½tsp baking powder
110g unsalted butter, room temperature
2 eggs
70g of plain yogurt
Juice of 4 passion fruits (about 4 tbsp)
pinch of salt

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter and line a loaf tin with parchment paper and butter it again. (I used a 7" by 3.5" loaf tin )
  
• In a mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar together till light and fluffy.
• Add eggs, one at a time till well mixed in.
  
• Add in yogurt and stir till incorporated. Then add in the passion fruit juice and mix well.
• Add in flour, baking powder and salt and stir till just blend in.
• Pour the cake batter into the loaf tin and bake for 40 to 45 mins or till the cake tester comes out clean.
• Cool on rack before slicing.
  

When the cake was almost done, the nice aroma that filled the whole house was "intoxicating," so nice!
The cake turned out very soft and light, not dense like the usual pound cake. It's sweet but not overly sweet and a hint of citrus from the passion fruit at the back. Overall I can say I'm very satisfied with this cake recipe. Might even try it with other citrus fruit next time, like lemon or grapefruit. If you worry there is a pungent scent or sourness from the fruit, it's not at all....my daughter has taste tested it and she loves it!

A close look at the cake, you can see the "fine grain"...not thick and dense. I think the taste will mellow out tomorrow, so the passion fruit scent might be even stronger and better! So good with a cup of tea...yum-O! Try it and let me know what you think. ;)