Bourke Street Bakery's Passion Fruit Tarts

I'm trying to clear out some of the freezer goodies and there's still a huge 1L tub of passion fruit puree in there. I've only used it in the coconut mango passion fruit macarons here and mango passion fruit verrines here. I thought that I should do something that let the passion fruit flavour shine on its own. So here's my take on the Bourke Street Bakery's Passion Fruit Meringue Tarts.

Bourke Street Bakery's Passion Fruit Tarts (sans meringue)

Trusty tart crust recipe

It's the second time I'm making this tart crust and I must say that it taste as good as I remembered it to be. One thing to note though. The recipe calls for it to bake at 200C for 20 minutes, I tried to play smart by decreasing it to 190C cos I thought 200C was too hot. Instead, I ended up baking it for close to 35minutes to brown. While I thought the taste was good, some tasters remarked that the crust was just a tad too hard. I have half a portion of the tart dough in the freezer. I might make up a batch of the ginger creme brulee tarts again soon so I'll try to stick to the original baking temperature to see if things improve.

It's just a personal preference, but I decided to omit the meringue part of the tart cos I'm not really a big fan of meringue. That's why I've not yet attempt making any meringue kisses or lemon meringue tart or baked alaska or baked meringue with fresh fruits. I find that meringue by itself taste sickeningly sweet, so I detest the taste of it. In fact, I hate the taste of fresh meringue (think whipped meringue atop a pie/tart) more than baked meringue (think meringue cookies) cos it somehow tastes funny on my tongue.  

I halved the recipe and it still yield quite a fair bit of tarts! I got 12 mini ones and 2 medium ones. I gave away some to some of my friends cos I don't think I can finish them on my own (by the way, no one in the family likes passion fruit as I do, they find it too sour :( ). 

My friends all gave the thumbs up and I'm glad. I was chatting with a girlfriend the other day, she loves baking as much as I do. And she aptly summarises how I feel about baking with her words - about how happy we will feel when those who taste our food enjoys it. For me, I enjoy the baking process immensely. I like the whole process - starting from reading of the recipe, measuring of ingredients, assembling the recipe steps and finally waiting in front of the oven that all goes as planned. I feel weird when I don't bake. It keeps me sane and happy to be pottering about in the kitchen. However, things aren't so happy for my ever expanding waistline...so perhaps I should cut down on my baking, (T.T) or I should just up my exercise quota. I think I should take up a class or something. Yoga perhaps...

Mint

On a completely random note, can I just ask how is mint supposed to be stored? Everytime I buy mint from the mart, it turns black almost instantly and within a few days, it's all black and withered and sad-looking. I've tried storing it in the fridge in the cling wrap box it comes in, and also tried wrapping it in newspapers before storing but the mint still turns black just as quickly! I need help! Any advice?

Bourke Street Bakery's Passion Fruit Tarts (adapted from Shirley at Kokken69)

Tart crust (same as here)

Passion Fruit Bavarois

150ml milk
1tsp gelatin
3 egg yolks
90g caster sugar
125ml passion fruit juice (or passion fruit puree)
175ml whipping cream

Mix the gelatin with 1 tbsp milk and set aside. Put rest of the milk in a saucepan and heat to almost boiling. In a heatproof bowl, add egg yolks, sugar and passion fruit puree and mix over a simmering water bath, making sure that the bowl does not touch the water. Pour in the hot milk into the passion fruit mixture and whisk over the simmering water bath for about 5 mins or until mixture becomes quite thick. Add in gelatin and stir well to dissolve. Remove from heat and strain. Chill mixture in the fridge for about an hour or just beginning to set. Whisk whipping cream until soft peaks are formed and fold into chilled passion fruit mixture. Pour into tart cases and refrigerate to set.

I love the taste of these passion fruit tarts. The texture of the passion fruit bavarois was super silky smooth. I strained the final mixture again before I poured the mixture into my tart cases. I used a mix of fresh passion fruit juice and frozen passion fruit puree (defrosted) and after I folded in the whipped cream into the chilled passion fruit mixture, there were passion fruit "strings" that marred the texture of the bavarois. So I did the extra step of straining it again so that the final result was a velvety cream that melted in one's mouth. Mmmmmms.