I’m always improvising in the kitchen and recipes are consistently evolving. This recipe originally started as a wonderful banana cake by Belinda Jefferies and now I have transformed it to make use of beautiful perfumed Red Hill feijoas. Adding yoghurt and honey marries well with the feijoa flavour plus I’ve added a streusel topping. If you don’t want to make the streusel, stir a third of a cup of chopped walnuts through the cake batter, instead. The cake is an all rounder, perfect with a morning cuppa, afternoon tea or as dessert.

Serves 8-12

225g (1½ cup) Tuerong Farm Winter White flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon sea salt

125g unsalted butter, softened

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup (100g) caster sugar

2 tablespoons honey

2 large free range eggs

110g (½ cup) natural Greek yoghurt 

300g (about 1½ cups) feijoa flesh - you’ll need 500g (about 9 large) feijoas, flesh scooped out

streusel topping (optional):

75g (1/2 cup) walnuts, roasted

50g (¼ cup) caster sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Greek yoghurt, to serve

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Grease and line the base of a 22cm spring form cake tin. 

Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt into a bowl and set aside. Cut feijoas in half acrossways. Using a teaspoon scoop out the flesh. You should have about 300g (1½ cups). Discard skins.

To make streusel topping, place the walnuts, sugar, cinnamon in a food processor. Pulse until nuts are coarse crumb. Transfer to a bowl and set aside for the topping.

Put the butter, vanilla, sugar and honey into the food processor bowl and blend until mixture is creamy. Add the eggs and pulse until combined. Add the yoghurt and pulse again to mix through. The mixture may look curdled at his stage. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add the flour mixture and carefully pulse just to combine, scraping down sides of bowl in between pulsing. Add the feijoa flesh and pulse again to chop the fruit and combine well, scraping down sides in between pulses, if necessary. Don’t be tempted to over blend, pulse in quick bursts only to mix until just combined. Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin and spread evenly. Scatter the streusel over the top, if using and spread evenly.

Bake for one hour, or until the top is golden and a skewer comes out clean when inserted. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, before removing from the tin then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cut into wedges and serve with Greek yoghurt or cream.

For small individual cakes, line 12 muffin holes with paper cups. Divide the mixture and fill each paper cup. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted.

Recipe by Fiona Hammond, April 2022