It’s feijoa time again. This week I’ve been the happy recipient of a goodly number, so have made feijoa jelly. You can make jam with them of course, but some people dislike the slight grittiness of the flesh. I don’t recommend making chutney with them – I’ve tried this and wasn’t all that pleased with the result. In any case, it is a shame to overpower their unique flavour with onions, spices and vinegar.

Because I have the luxury of so many at the moment, I used several in cup cakes, flavouring the cake batter and icing with lemon. The feijoa gives a nice tang to the cakes but is not too sour.

I’ve included the recipe for the jelly and cup cakes here and also repeated the recipe for feijoa dessert cake that I posted last year in feijoa season.

If you can get hold of some feijoas, even if you don’t plan to cook with them, try sitting some on your bench top in a bowl – their aroma is truly amazing.

Feijoa Jelly

1kg feijoas, washed (but not peeled) and chopped

4 cups water

Juice 1 small lemon

4 cups sugar

Place the feijoas, water and lemon juice in large saucepan (3 litre capacity) and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer until fruit is soft. Pour the mixture into a colander that has been placed over a large bowl or pot. Leave to stand for 20 minutes at least. Pour the resulting liquid through a sieve that has been lined with one layer of muslin or similar.

Place this final liquid into a saucepan and add the sugar. Bring back to the boil, stirring constantly, then reduce heat to medium and cook until setting point is reached. To check for set, place a teaspoonful of mixture on a cold saucer, place in fridge for a few minutes – if it sets on the saucer, then the jelly has reached setting point.

Feijoa Cup Cakes

 Makes 10 large cup cakes or approximately 20 smaller cakes.

1 egg

¾ cup sugar

1 ½ cups self raising flour

Grated rind 1 lemon

¼ cup lemonn juice

½ cup milk

 60g butter, melted

1 cup diced feijoa flesh

For the icing

1½ cups icing sugar

Grated rind 1 lemon

Juice ½ lemon, approximately

2 teaspoons melted butter

 Heat oven to 160°C. Grease 10 x ½ cup capacity muffin pans or line with muffin papers (or use smaller ¼ cup capacity tins to make 20)

Whisk the egg and sugar together until well combined and light, then mix in the flour, rind, juice, milk and butter, all at once. Whisk until smooth, then fold in the diced feijoa with a metal spoon.

Pour evenly into the prepared tins and bake for 20 minutes for larger cakes or 15 for the smaller. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing mix together the icing sugar, rind and melted butter with enough lemon juice to make a smooth spreading consistency. Spread over the cooled cup cakes.

Feijoa Dessert Cake

 This recipe makes a deliciously moist dessert cake.  It has a crunchy crumble-style topping, some of which seeps into and through the cake to make small pockets of caramel nestled around delectable morsels of feijoa.

 To obtain the feijoa flesh for this recipe, peel the feijoas and cut into 1cm cubes.  I find the easiest way to do this is to cut the feijoas in half, then scoop out the flesh with a teaspoon, then cut into 1cm cubes.

 For the cake mixture:

125g butter

1½ cups castor sugar

Finely grated rind of 1 lemon

1 egg

1¼ cups plain flour

1 cup self-raising flour

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 cups chopped feijoa flesh

 For the topping:

¼ cup butter

2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed

1 rounded tablespoon plain flour

 Turn oven to 160°C (fan forced).  Grease a deep sided 20cm round cake tin and line with baking paper, grease again.

 Cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind, then add the egg and whisk till well combined

 Fold in the 1 cup of plain flour, the self-raising flour, milk and lemon juice.  Fold in the chopped feijoas. 

 Pour into a 20cm deep sided round cake tin that has been greased and the base lined with baking paper. 

 Rub together the brown sugar, cinnamon, butter and flour (this is not quite the consistency of the ‘normal’ crumble topping – it is much moister).

 Distribute this evenly over the top of the cake mixture (you needn’t be too fussy about this).

 Bake for about 45 minutes until centre is firm to the touch.  Leave in the tin for about 10 minutes before turning out.

 Serve with cream, custard, ice cream or mascarpone.

 Serves 6 to 8.