Passion Fruit Muffins with Passion Fruit Glaze #MuffinMonday

Many passion fruit recipes suggest that you strain out the seeds but I happen to like the pop and crunch they add to a dish, dessert or baked good. I am delighted to share that they are also reported to be a nutritious addition, adding fiber, antioxidants and magnesium to a healthy diet.  

Although I spent some time in tropical climes when I was a child, passion fruit only reached my consciousness when I moved to Brazil as an adult. There it is called maracujá and features in many desserts, especially the local favorite, ubiquitous at every restaurant and house party, mousse de maracujá. It occurs to me that I’ve never posted that recipe here and perhaps I need to rectify that.

Meanwhile, since my local grocery stores are filled with passion fruit at reasonable prices, and since it is Muffin Monday, I put them in beautiful, flavorful muffins. I think they would be great for the upcoming Holy Week, the week before Easter, which commemorates the passion of Christ. Maybe I can start a new worldwide tradition of baking passion fruit muffins in addition to hot cross buns. Anybody else game to join me?

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups or 190g flour
1/2 cup or 115g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup or 60g butter, melted then cooled
1/2 cup or 120g passion fruit pulp, including the seeds

Optional glaze – passion fruit pulp from two small passion fruit (1/8 cup or 30g) plus an equal amount of powdered sugar (1/4 cup or 30g) and small pinch of salt.

Method
Preheat your oven to 350F° or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing or lining with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl mix together your flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In a smaller bowl, whisk your milk, eggs and melted butter, along with the passion fruit pulp.

Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Evenly distribute the batter among the muffin cups.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

Meanwhile, make the glaze, if using. Mix all three ingredients together in a small bowl, until all the sugar has dissolved.

Remove the muffins from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove the muffins from the muffin pan and finish cooling on a rack.

When the muffins are completely cooled, carefully spoon the glaze over the tops. It will soak in and make the muffins even more moist.

Enjoy!

Passionfruit Cookies

Beautifully crunchy on the outside with sweet and tart chewy insides, these passionfruit cookies taste of Brazilian sunshine and samba.

Since I started this blogging thing, I have met some wonderful bloggers online and have learned a lot from those who have been at this a much longer time.  I would read about ingredients they had been offered by companies who wanted them to create a recipe and get-togethers with other bloggers at foodie events.  And, while I was happy for them, I was a little sad for me.  I didn’t know any other bloggers personally and no one had ever offered me free stuff.  Well, in Dubai, all that has changed!  I now belong to a great group of UAE bloggers and have even had the privilege of meeting a few of them face-to-face.  And then, some weeks ago, I received an email from a public relations person who wanted to send me some sugar.  Not some strange ingredient that I would have to work around, but sugar!  Of course, I said yes!  Hey, why not?  The company is called Aveem and they very kindly sent me not only white sugar, but some light brown sugar as well.  (And a few other goodies.  As I said, nice people!)

According to the initial email, the sugar is from Brazil so I decided that a recipe with one of our favorite flavors from Brazil, passionfruit or maracujá, would be most appropriate.  And delicious.

Ingredients
1/4 cup or 60ml fresh passionfruit pulp, as measured without seeds (Don’t panic!  I’ll show you how to do this.  Also, don’t discard the seeds.  We are going to put some back in for color.)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup or 130g sugar
1/2 cup or 110g butter
2 eggs
1/2 - 1 cup light brown sugar for rolling dough in before baking

Method
Cut open your passionfruit and, using a spoon, scoop the pulp and seeds into a bowl.  Whisk vigorously to loosen the seeds from the pulp and juice.

Pour the whole bowl into a strainer over another clean bowl, and whisk again until all you are left with in the strainer is the seeds.  Measure out your juice and set aside 1/4 cup or 60ml for your cookies.  If you have any extra, you can sweeten it with a little sugar and serve it over ice and topped up with soda water for a very fresh and refreshing drink.

Add 2-3 teaspoons of the seeds back into the juice for color.  They are perfectly edible but too many will distract from the soft chewy cookie.

Preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C and grease or spray your cookie sheet with non-stick spray.

Mix together your flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.

Put your light brown sugar into another small bowl and set aside.

With electric beaters or in your stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar.  Add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one.

Add in your passionfruit juice and beat again.  At this point your mixture might look like it’s curdling on you but do not despair.

Add a few tablespoons of the flour mixture to the mixing bowl and beat again.

Still mixing, continue adding in your flour mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time, until it is all incorporated.

You now have a soft dough and can proceed to the next step or, it might be easier to chill the dough for half an hour or so in the refrigerator before proceeding.  I plowed right ahead but next time, I will definitely chill the dough.

Using a small scoop or tablespoon, drop small amounts of your soft dough into the light brown sugar.

Swirl the bowl around until the ball of dough is covered in brown sugar.

Gently lift the little ball out and place it on the greased cookie sheet.  Leave room between the balls for the cookies to spread while baking.

Continue until your cookie sheet is full.  Bake in the preheated over for about 10-12 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown.  Chill the dough in the refrigerator while the first batch bakes and continue the process until all the cookies are baked.

Remove the cookies with a metal spatula and cool on a wire rack.  Sometimes one slips into your mouth.  It's a risk all bakers take.

This recipe will yield almost four dozen beautifully crunchy outside, chewy inside passionfruit cookies.   Serve them in your blue and white Brazilian pottery and savor the sweet taste of sunshine and samba.

Enjoy!

Lemon Lime Passionfruit Cream Tart

Lovely and tart with just enough sweetness, this lemon lime passionfruit cream tart is the perfect end to your meal or addition to an afternoon tea.

Expat. Expatriate. Person who lives in a country that is not his or her own native land. I have figured out over my last 25 years as same, that the term expat is not widely known among people who do not live overseas or travel extensively. Those who are familiar with the term often have some exaggerated preconceived notions of what it means and they usually involve a fancy lifestyle and living high on the hog.

I cannot deny that there are many advantages to expat living, especially if one is sent somewhere wonderful (And here I quote my friend, Valorie, who, upon being told that my family was being transferred from our mutual location of Balikpapan, Indonesia, to Paris, France, exclaimed, “People don’t LIVE in Paris, Stacy! They go there on holiday!) but there are also disadvantages. 

 The biggest one is saying goodbye to people we have worked with, cheered at school sporting events with, parented our children with, grown to love.

This is a long and very round about way of saying that I went to a going-away party last night. And the only thing that eases the pain of saying of goodbye is good food and good drink. And spending the evening laughing with good friends.

Here’s what I brought along:

Lemon Lime Passionfruit Cream Tart

This recipe has three parts but don't be alarmed. None of them are tricky. We will blind bake a crust though, which just means we are going to bake it for a little bit before we put the filling in. It was adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Lemon Lime Cream Tart in The Naked Chef, now available, apparently, in paperback or, if you prefer, the version I have.

Ingredients
For the crust which fits a large 11-inch tart tin:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup shortening (Crisco is my preferred but I have had to use butter in some countries where Crisco is not available. It works but the crust is not as flaky.)
5-6 tablespoons of cold water
1 egg for the egg wash after the crust is blind baked

For the filling: 8 large eggs
1 1/2 cups or 340g caster sugar

1/2 cup or 120ml double cream

170g of passionfruit pulp in syrup (which is just a dab less than 150ml or a little more than a 1/2 cup) or the same volume of fresh passionfruit pulp plus an extra 1/2 cup or 113g sugar) 

1/3 cup or 85ml lime juice

1/2 cup or 120ml lemon juice 

Confectioner's or powdered sugar for sprinkling

For the optional topping:
5-6 fresh passionfruit
1 tablespoon cornstarch or cornflour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon of butter

Method
Put the flour, shortening and salt together in one bowl. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the flour into the shortening until you have small crumbs.



Add the cold water a tablespoon at a time, blending with the tines of a fork, until the mixture forms a soft dough which can be rolled into a ball.





Flatten the ball into a patty and wrap it in cling film and chill in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.



When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C. Roll the dough out into a circle to fit your pie pan.





For more information about this handy rolling bag, check out my quiche recipe. You can, of course, do it the old-fashioned way but it will be easier to insert in your tart pan if you roll it out on some parchment or waxed paper.



Put the inside of your tart pan on the dough or the whole pan if that's what you are using.





Center the rim part and put your hand under the whole thing. Flip the crust over and remove the rolling bag or your parchment.

Gently ease the crust into the tart pan.





Turn the edges over and crimp them to make them look nice. Poke the crust all over with a fork to help it stop puffing up when baking.



Cut a piece of parchment paper the width of your tart pan. Fold it in half and then in half again.

Now fold it one side to the other so it has a point, as if you were making a paper airplane.

Fold that in half again so the point is very pointy.



Trim the paper to the diameter of your pan and open up to reveal a circle.





Push this gently into your crust and top with dried beans or ceramic baking beads.



Bake for around 10 minutes. Meanwhile, start the filling.

Whisk together the sugar and eggs in a bowl. Set aside.





Remove from crust from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Turn the oven down to 350°F or 180°C. Remove the beads.



Beat your spare egg from the crust ingredients and add a splash of water. Apply it to the crust with a brush. This eggwash will keep the crust from getting soggy when the filling is put in it.





Give the egg-sugar mixture another good whisk and slowly stir in the cream and the juices.





Put the cooked tart shell back into the oven and then pour the filling into it – This helps reduce spillage.





Bake for around 40 to 45 minutes or until the filling is set, but still semi-wobbly just in the middle. Give the baking pan a gentle shake at 40 minutes and, if too much jiggles, leave it in again for 10 minutes and test again. Just the very center should wobble.



After cooling for an hour, the semi-wobbly filling will have firmed up to the perfect consistency; soft and smooth. If you cut it before it has had time to rest it will pour out or be extremely gooey.

Now we are ready for the topping. (You can skip this step and serve with just a sprinkling of confectioners' or powdered sugar but it sure looks pretty and tastes good too.)

Cut the passionfruit open and gently scrape the pulp out into a fine sieve, over a bowl to catch the juice. You don’t want to get the white part of the peel, just the pulp.





Let it drain for a few minutes then pour the juice into a small pot. Whisk in the cornstarch and sugar and make sure there are no lumps before putting the pot on the heat.



Turn the heat on, to medium, and keep adding in the juice that is dripping into your bowl from under the pulp as the mixture warms. Whisk constantly until the sauce starts to get hot and thicken ever so slightly.



Add in the pulp and cook until it is thick but still pourable. Take the sauce off the heat and whisk in the teaspoon of butter.



Pour the sauce on top of the tart and spread it around. Allow to cool completely before trying to serve.








Enjoy!