A sweet and sticky feijoa filling, sandwiched between two layers of buttery shortbread-style cake.
Am I even an NZ food blogger if I don’t have at least one recipe for feijoa? If you’re not from NZ or Australia, you might know it as Pineapple Guava. Whatever it’s called, it’s an amazing fruit. I don’t even know how to describe the taste.
To me it tastes like the most delicious natural candy. So sweet and perfumed, in a really good way.
Today’s recipe was inspired by the need to find a way to use up the copious amounts of feijoas we have in the fridge at the moment. That’s the thing with this fruit. It’s only in season for a short period of time in NZ but in that time supply goes from 0-10 so quickly and we have more than we know what to do with!
This slice goes so well with a morning cup of tea or coffee. It’s also a brilliant lunchbox filler. My kids love this as a treat at school.
The bottom layer is a shortcake. A shortcake is essentially a dense style cake with a high butter content. It makes it crumbly and delicious and almost melts in the mouth. The more butter in there, the ‘shorter’ the cake.
The filling is chopped feijoas, a little cinnamon and cornflour. No need for sugar in the filling as the feijoas are so sweet all on their own.
Then the topping is more of the shortcake. Rustically spread around so you can see the filling poking through.
Once it’s baked it just needs to cool a little so the filling thickens up, then it’s ready to slice!
You can serve it cool as a morning tea slice, or warm with cream or ice cream as a dessert.
Simple Feijoa Shortcake
A sweet and sticky feijoa filling, sandwiched between two layers of buttery shortbread-style cake.
Ingredients
- 140 grams unsalted butter, cold and cubed
- 150 grams white sugar (2/3 cup)
- 300 grams plain flour (2 cups)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 large egg
- 2-3 tbsp milk
Feijoa Filling
- 650g grams feijoas (about 10 medium or 18 small)
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp cornflour
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit. Grease or line a 27cm rectangular slice tin.
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In a food processor, combine the butter, sugar, salt, flour and baking powder and pulse until it resembles course bread crumbs. Alternately use a pastry cutter or your fingers to cut/rub the butter into the flour.
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Lightly beat the egg and add it to the flour mixture. Stir or pulse it to combine it into a thick dough that clumps together (not sticky), along with as much of the milk as you need to make the dough.
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Scoop out the inners of the feijoas and place them in a bowl. Add in the cinnamon and cornflour and use a fork to mix this together and slightly squash the feijoas and break them up a bit.
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Take 2/3 of the dough mixture and press it into the slice tin. Use the back of a measuring cup to press it down until the bottom of the tin is covered.
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Layer over the feijoa filling.
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Take the remaining 1/3 of the dough and rip off pieces and flatten them slightly. Place the pieces irregularly over the feijoa filling. It is fine that it doesn’t cover all the filling.
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Bake for 25-28 minutes until the shortcake topping is golden brown. Leave to cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing.
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