Since graduating high school, I have lived my life almost exclusively in warmer places – Southern California, Austin, Atlanta – and never really felt the need for a break from the (non) winter weather. This is now our third year in Seattle and I’m starting to remember what mid-winter actually feels like – the unique despair of waking up to what feels like the 1,000th day of wall-to-wall grey and rain and seeing the entire, godforsaken month of March stretch out in front of me. This year it’s compounded by the claustrophobia from nearly a year of lockdown – it 10/10 beats the alternative, but probably means that an escape to someplace we can wear flip-flops is not coming anytime soon.
I’m guessing you are also staying put for the foreseeable future. While I can’t offer any reassurances that the chance to put your feet in the sand with a fruity, refreshing drink in hand is just around the corner, I can offer you that tropical drink in cake form, a virtual vacation for your root vegetable- and soup-weary taste buds: a guanabana cake, topped with a double coconut glaze.
Guanabanas (aka guyabano, cherimoya, soursop, or custard apple) are my most favorite tropical fruit. The flesh is white, creamy and sweet; to me, it tastes like a cross between bananas and a pineapple, with a texture like melting ice cream. It’s divine in smoothies, lending a creaminess that would be otherwise hard to replicate without dairy. Sadly, they are tough to find fresh outside of tropical climates, and I can’t actually remember the last time I ate a fresh guanabana. Asian and Indian grocery stores in Seattle usually have a few, exorbitantly priced and a bit bruised from their long, arduous journey to the produce bins, and I’ve never had the heart to buy one and risk the inevitable disappointment.
But serendipity strikes when you least expect it – and while searching the back of the freezer case at Uwajimaya (a local Japanese market) for frozen taro root, I saw this small canister with Vietnamese words, an English descriptor of “custard fruit”. Upon closer inspection, and a quick Google Search, I realized I had happened upon frozen guanabana puree!
After a thaw in the fridge, the paste look on a texture similar to mashed bananas, which gave me the idea for this cake. I will fully admit that this is just a shameless, minimally tweaked banana bread situation – after all, we forget that bananas were once a rare tropical treat too. The guanabana puree behaves exactly like mashed bananas in baking, adding moisture, sweetness and texture – but the guanabana flavor is much lighter and doesn’t brown during baking. If you have access to fresh guanabanas, you can certainly have a go at making your own puree; remove the large, black seeds and pulse a few times in a blender or food processor.
I made several other deviations from the banana bread formula, like swapping out half the traditional brown sugar for white to lighten it up, and adding toasted, shredded unsweetened coconut for texture usually contributed by nuts or chocolate chips. Then I improvised a creamy coconut icing with a (pandemic impulse buy) shelf-stable box of coconut cream that was lingering in our pantry. For extra vacation-y vibes , I covered the whole thing with even more toasted coconut flakes. If you squint hard enough, with a mouthful of this cake, and the heater on full blast – it just might look like a sandy beach.
Tropical Guanabana Cake with Coconut Cream Icing
Ingredients
- 113g unsalted butter
- 250g guanabana puree, fresh or frozen (thawed to room temp if frozen)
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 75g granulated sugar
- 75g light brown sugar
- 250g all-purpose flour, sifted
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 50g unsweetened shredded coconut
- 2 1/2 Tbsp unsweetened coconut cream*
- 150g confectioners sugar
- 1 Tbsp lime juice
Directions
- Toast the coconut in a skillet over medium-low heat until just lightly browned. Remove to a separate bowl and let cool. Reserve 2 tbsp for topping the cake.
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan; remove from heat and let cool.
- Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Grease and line a 9×5 inch (26×12.5 cm) loaf pan with parchment paper.
- Lightly beat the eggs in a medium bowl, add the guanabana paste, sugars, salt and melted butter and whisk to combine until smooth. Set aside.
- Sift the flour with the baking powder into a large bowl. Add the cooled coconut flakes and stir to combine. Make a well and pour the wet ingredients into the well. Fold in gently until just combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes. Cake is done with an inserted toothpick pulls moist crumbs.
- Allow to cool 10 minutes in the tin, then turn out to a cooling rack.
- While the cake cools, make the coconut cream icing. Sift confectioners sugar into a medium bowl, add lime juice and coconut cream and stir until smooth. Pour over cooled cake. Top with reserved toasted coconut.
