Tropical Passion

The theme for February's Iron Cupcake London challenge is 'Love'.  I knew there would probably be a lot of chocolate, berries, champagne, rose or variations of these flavours. So I decided to be slightly different and came up with 2 ideas. The first is 'tropical passion' which is a passionfruit and pineapple cupcake with a lime and coconut frosting. I topped it with little pink glitter hearts and added a little umbrella for effect. What do you think? It was a really light and refreshing cake.

The batter smelled absolutely divine - I got some really nice passionfruit from Waitrose

Passionfruit and Pineapple Cupcake

90g butter, softened

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup self-raising flour

1/4 cup cornflour

1/2 cup crushed pineapple (well drained)

1/4 cup passionfruit pulp (about 2 fruits depending on size)

Lime and Coconut Buttercream

115g unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

grated zest of 1-2 limes (approx 2 teaspoons)

500g icing sugar, sifted

Handful of dessicated coconut to decorate

• 
  
  Preheat oven to 180C
• 
  
  Beat butter, eggs, sugar and flour in a small bowl with an electric mixer on low speed until ingredients are just combined. Increase speed to medium, beat until mixture is pale in colour.
• 
  
  Stir in passionfruit pulp and crushed pineapple.
• 
  
  Divide mixture among cupcake cases.
• 
  
  Bake for approximately 20-25minutes
• 
  
  For the frosting - beat butter, lime juice, zest and half the icing sugar until smooth. Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat until thick and creamy.