Happy New Year!
For my first blog post of 2019 I wanted to showcase something tart and refreshing so I present to you a Passion Fruit Tart. This past holiday season I definitely didn't pass up any opportunities to over indulge - four raclette dinners in the span of three weeks was evidence of that! I made this tart for dessert at one of those dinners and it was the perfect ending to such a heavy meal. Besides, I don't think passion fruit gets all the love it deserves. I myself am a huge fan of the tropical fruit and try to use it in baking wherever I can.
While fresh fruit is always best I find the cost of passion fruit, at
least here in San Francisco, can be quite prohibitive. My local Asian
market was selling the fruit for $4 each and when you normally need at least
five for any given recipe that tends to be expensive. I found a
fantastic alternative though - frozen passion fruit pulp. Head to your local
Hispanic supermarket and nine times out of ten they'll carry this item.
Plus, it's so much cheaper than the fresh fruit. The only downside being that that you forgo colorful seeds but I'm ok with that.
To make this tart I started with Cook's Illustrated's
classic lemon tart and simply substituted the lemon juice with passion
fruit pulp. Easy peasy! What I particularly love about CI's recipe is
that you make a curd first and then bake it in a warm sweet pastry
crust. This leads to a firm filling and a tart that's easier to slice
and serve. I encourage you to give this dessert a try - you won't
regret it!
