Today is my birthday, not that you’d know peeking in at my home, everybody is still asleep and I’m busy writing out meal plans and baking my own cake.

A birthday just isn’t a birthday without cake, and for my birthday, instead of the usual icing covered Disney themed cakes I normally churn out for the boys’ birthdays I thought something simple would be the way to go, and knew exactly what I wanted.

My Dad (baker and chef extraordinaire) makes the most amazing cakes for his restaurant, but no matter how many different varieties he has on, you can guarantee that the sponge will always be the first to sell out, I think people appreciate that it’s so classic.

So this is my twist on the traditional sponge, incorporating that classic Australian breakfast treat, passion fruit spread and with more than a lingering hint of vanilla going through the sponge and the buttercream.

For the cake

• 200g butter, softened (you can use marg, but I highly recommend butter!)
• 200g caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1tsp baking powder
• 200g self raising flour
• 4tbs Passion fruit pulp

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Grease two 20cm cake tins – I like to just use spray oil.
3. Cream the butter, eggs, vanilla and caster sugar together in a mixing bowl – you can do this by hand or mixer.
4. Fold in the (sifted) flour and baking powder.
5. Add the passion fruit pulp – it’s up to your personal taste whether to include the seeds or not, I love them, my sons and husband do not, so they won out this time!
6. Split the mix between two 20cm cake tins. Chuck it on a middle shelf of your oven for 20-25 minutes or until it rises when tapped in the centre (just don’t tap too hard because you’ll end up with a finger shaped hole in your cake!)

If you replace the pulp with milk, that is your standard sponge mix, it can be played with to your hearts content, so long as the ratios stay the same. Remove 100g of flour and replace it with 100g of cocoa for a chocolate cake, add lemon juice instead of the milk and you have a lemon cake… it goes on. Also note the ratio of 1 egg – 50g, so if you want to increase the recipe, just remember that for every egg you add, you need an additional 50g of flour, butter and sugar. I actually tend to halve this recipe and make just one cake, which I cut in half vertically and then stack. So it’s just half a cake, but it means we’re not eating cake for an entire week

For The Filling

• 40g softened butter
• 100g icing sugar
• Vanilla extract
• Passion fruit spread

1. Cream the sugar, butter and vanilla
2. Spread over the bottom layer of your (cooled!) cake
3. Spread your passion fruit spread over the icing. We have this amazing passion fruit and lemon butter made by a lady called Jan who goes to bingo with my husband’s grandmother on Tuesdays, or something like that, if you can’t get your hands on Jan’s Jams (I seriously hope she’s trademarked that!), then you can either buy some at the store, I recomend “Three Threes Passionfruit Butter” – it has a kangaroo on the label, or you can make your own. The amount you use is purely a preference thing, I like it tangy, so used plenty, if you just want a hint, use less.
4. Nom and enjoy!

It’s birthday time again in a few more weeks… I wonder if i can persuade my two year old he wants a basic sponge instead of the Thomas cake he’s been requesting.