Growing up my parents always had a couple of passionfruit vines growing on the fence. Every summer we would be able to pick some, cut them in half, and spoon out their delicious pulp. If they were too sour, we’d add a sprinkle of sugar, and keep right on going. Passionfruit went our Christmas pavlovas, and sometime mum would make passionfruit cordial as a summer treat.
Mum used to make lemon curd regularly, and occasionally, if there were lots of passionfruits, she made passionfruit curd instead. At the same time she would bake a big batch of little shortcrust pastry cases to keep just in case some one dropped by. Then she could just whip out the cases and a jar of curd, and just like that, a whole lot of little lemon or passionfruit tarts were ready to offer to our guest.
Here on the farm it is too cold to grow passionfruits, so they are a treat we don’t have very often. Last week in town though, I saw some bags of them going cheap, so I grabbed a couple and decided to introduce my kids to one of my childhood memories. Make the curd on it’s own, and devour it on toast or bread, or whip up a few tart cases, drop a spoonful of curd in, and make a special morning tea. Either way is delicious.
- 12 passionfruits
- 150g sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- 100g butter
- Remove the pulp from 10 of the passionfruits. Place the pulp in a food processor for 10 seconds to loosen the juice. Pass the pulp through a sieve to remove the seeds. Add the pulp from the remaining two passionfruits to the juice
- Whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar in a small bowl until smooth.
- Melt the butter gently in a saucepan on a low heat.
- Stir in passionfruit juice and pulp, and the egg mixture.
- Slowly stir gently and continually until the mixture thickens. This should take 5 to 10 minutes.
- Once the mixture has thickened remove immediately from the heat and continue to stir for a further minute to prevent it from separating.
- Cool slightly and pour into a 375ml jar.
- Store in the fridge
- 1¾ c plain flour
- ½c caster sugar
- pinch salt
- 125g butter
- 1 egg + 1 egg yolk
- Place the flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
- Add in the egg and egg yolk and process again until the mixture comes together to form a dough.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Roll and cut to the desired size and shape.
- Bake at 200*c
Did you have passionfruit growing on your fence as a child?
