Passion Fruit Cream Melting Moments
Ever since I can remember, I have had the biggest appreciation for passion fruit. It started maybe when my grandparents where still living here on Boullia station. Grandma had the most magnificent passion fruit vine growing across both sides of the front entrance into the main house. In fact, it was borderline evasive. To the point where it had grow well passed it’s designated trellis, up over the screens covering the louvers and nearly to the point where it was reaching into the roof.
Each year it would drop more fruit than we could keep up with. The sweetness of curds, jams and all types of baked goods emerging from Grandma’s kitchen didn’t seem to make a dent in the stock that the vines would produce - and this was even after giving away a vast portion of them to neighbours.
Unfortunately, as passion fruit vines only last a series of 5-8 years after maturity, it started to lessen it’s creeping vines and eventually got to the point where it’s risk of harboring snakes couldn’t be overlooked to relish in it’s yearly harvests. Decades since it’s expiration, it’s little curly brown climbing tendrils still hold onto the meshing covering the louvers - a gentle reminder of both my childhood and my grandma every time I walk up the stairs into the house.
This year, a new chapter began with my first ever notable harvest of my very own passion fruits. My vine, now 2 years old and planted against the secondary house in which we live in on the property, managed to drop upwards of 20-30 passion fruits during the beginning of summer - luckily before the sun managed to bake them right off the vine. For those of you who love to garden, you will understand the feeling of success when something you grow from seed or seedling, makes it through years of care to finally reward you with it’s fruiting.
For me, these fruits embodied not only a sense of extreme satisfaction of keeping something green alive in the what some would argue to be “Hell’s Armpit” on earth . It also symbolised a more sentimental meaning - a tribute to my childhood and my grandma’s passion fruit. Needless to say, the opening of every one of these juicy, sweet fruits was joyful to me. Even more so to be able to fill my own house full of the same scents that once greeted me as a kid.
What better way to pay homage to this than to sandwich a passion fruit icing between two of my favourite biscuits - melting moments.
Passionfruit Cream Melting Moments
Ingredients
- 170g unsalted butter - room temperature
- 60g icing sugar
- 55 custard powder
- 170g plain flour
- 200g icing sugar
- 30g unsalted butter - softened
- 2+ tbsp of passionfruit juice (seeds strained)
- Open Star Pastry Tip - I used a Wilton M1
- Piping bag or strong ziploc bag
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 180℃ and line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.
- Cream butter and icing sugar together until pale and creamy. Measure custard powder and plain flour into a sifter and sift together into the butter mixture. Mix until just combined.
- Press mixture into the piping bag fitted with a star piping tip. Firmly squeeze the mixture into a small scroll starting from the middle and swirling the mixture around to form a biscuit.
- Alternatively if you don't want to use a piping bag - roll the mixture into balls by using a heaped teaspoon to measure quantity before rolling. Once dough is rolled and evenly spaced on the baking sheet, lightly press down on the balls with the back of a fork. If the dough is too soft, dust the fork with plain flour before pressing down each biscuit.
- Place in the oven to cook for 15 minutes but watch very closely.
- Once cooked, remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes or until biscuits become hard. Cool completely on wire rack before icing.
- To making the icing, place butter into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat until very pale and creamy. Add sifted icing sugar, followed by the passion fruit juice. Add more or less juice to achieve a thick icing consistency that will hold it's shape when sandwiched between two biscuits.
- Using another piping bag fitted with the same tip as before, pipe small swirls of icing onto one biscuit. Sandwich the icing with another before repeating with remaining biscuits.
Notes
Biscuits kept in an airtight container at a cool room temperature will last for 2-3 days.