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Sheryl & Victoria's Maracuya Glaze Cake

When I published this article the first time, I said that the cake should be served warm. I take that back. It is so much better when it is room temperature.

My friend Victoria is a native of New Zealand and a big fan of Donna Hay, the down under version of Martha Stewart. (Maybe Martha Stewart is the northern hemisphere's version of Donna Hay.) Several months ago she brought the most luscious, tangy cake to a party. She got the recipe for the "Yoghurt and Passionfruit Syrup Cake" from Donna Hay magazine #37. Last month, I volunteered to bring the desert for a women's retreat at my church. I specifically chose to bring a desert was because I had started to crave this cake again.

Donna Hay's version of the recipe included Greek style yoghurt in the cake and passion fruit (maracuya) pulp for the glaze. I live in Texas, so passion fruit is easier to find here than other parts of the US, but even so, I went to three grocery stores and found none. As I traipsed all over town searching in vain for either frozen or fresh, I was trying to think of something else to make, but my mind was stubbornly refusing to budge. At the last store, I found frozen maracuya juice concentrate. I bought three cans just in case it would work, and then started looking for the Greek style yoghurt. Of course Murphy's Law reigns supreme, and I couldn't find any. So I bought regular yogurt instead.

I went home with all the fixings and searched the internet to find out what "Greek style yoghurt" was anyway. The Ochef website said, "If you substitute plain, American whole-milk yogurt in your recipe, it will fail miserably, and your self-esteem will suffer." I took a deep breath and bid farewell to Donna's cake, but I still held out hope. I decided to search Helium's web site for a yogurt cake I could use and found Recipes: Fast and easy cakes by Sheryl Spencer. To my delight, the cake was just as easy and fast to make as she promised it would be. This was an especially good thing because, by this time, I had about an hour and a half left to make it to the church on time.

The other thing I did was to call Victoria and ask her if the frozen concentrate would work for the glaze. Things were finally starting to work out. She told me that all I had to do was follow the recipe just as Donna had published it because the pulp was runny anyway.

The recipe called for 8 ounces of pulp, but the frozen concentrate was in a 12 ounce can. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with the left over concentrate when, in a flash of brilliance, I realized that I could just make more glaze than the original recipe called for. So, in the end, my contribution to Victoria's cake recipe was my modified glaze recipe.

The Syrup: 12 ounce can maracuya juice concentrate 3/4 cup water 3/4 cup of sugar

To make the syrup place the concentrated fruit juice, water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn down to a low simmer, stirring occasionally. Let become syrupy and set asside - note that it will thicken as it cools.

Use a skewer to spike all over, then pour the syrup over the whole cake.

I named this recipe for Victoria because she is the one that introduced me to the glaze and for Sheila because she saved me with her cake.

Learn more about this author, Piper Wilson.
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