Passion Fruit Meringue Tart

My friend passed me some passion fruits a while ago as her family had a tree in their backyard. I love passion fruit, and I immediately knew I wanted to make a dessert with them.

Passion Fruit Meringue Tart

First of all, I knew I wanted to make passion fruit curd. But what could I do with passion fruit curd besides using it as a spread for bread? A tart. It would be the perfect vessel to encase a ton of passion fruit curd. Yum. So a passion fruit tart was in order then.

I realised the fresh passion fruit pulp fell short of the amount required, but thankfully, I had some passion fruit puree in the freezer that was just enough to make up for it. Phew. So I guess if you don't have fresh passion fruit on hand, you could always use passion fruit puree in place in the recipe.

Can I just say something? Just go bake this already. Those who tried this tart all gave thumbs up. I sliced up a portion of the tart and gave it to the girlfriend who gifted me with those passion fruits. She, who is not even a big dessert fan, actually requested me to bake this for her birthday. And mind you, this was back in April then, and her birthday is in October. Ha!

I'm normally not a fan of meringue, but I thought that the layer of torched meringue was the perfect touch to the dessert. A crunchy tart shell, a tangy refreshing passion fruit filling, and a sweet fluffy cloud-like meringue frosting. Bliss. (Okay, fine, I admit it's just another excuse to bust out my blowtorch.)

I really loved the looks and taste of this refreshing tart, and I would love to make this again, except that I have a really bad habit of not repeating a recipe (at least not in the next coupla months or so) because there's just so many other recipes I want to try out.

But if I happen to get my hands on fresh passion fruits again, I know for sure what I'm going to be making...

Passion Fruit Meringue Tart
(makes 1 " tart and 2 4" tartelettes)

Passion Fruit Curd
6 large eggs
1 cup (200g) passion fruit pulp (~4-5 passion fruits)
225g sugar (recommend reducing if you like sour stuff)
125g unsalted butter, dice into (approximately tablespoon-sized) chunks
pinch of salt

Combine the eggs, passion fruit pulp and sugar in a saucepan.
Heat over low heat, whisking lightly for the first few minutes to dissolve the sugar.
Using a heatproof spatula, stir constantly to prevent mixture from curdling, till the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon (took me about 10 minutes or so).
Remove from heat, gradually add in the butter chunks bit by bit, whisking to mix in the butter.
Strain (if desired if you want to remove any possible cooked egg bits and the passion fruit seeds).
Transfer to clean bowl, cover with cling wrap, chill overnight in fridge.

Tart (adapted from Natasha at Butter Baking)
130g unsalted butter, softened
45g salted butter, softened
100g icing sugar, sifted
big pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
250g AP flour, sifted

Beat together butters, icing sugar and salt till creamy.
Add the egg yolk and beat for another 30s or so to combine.
Mix in the flour on low speed until just incorporated.
Clingwrap dough and refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours.
Grease a " tart mold. Roll dough to 1/2cm thickness and line the greased tart mold.
(I had extra dough scraps to line two 4" tart molds)
Prick with fork, return to fridge to chill for half an hour.
Preheat oven to 180C.
Line the tarts with foil and fill with pie weights, bake for 20 minutes, remove pie weights, reduce heat to 165C and bake for another 10 minutes or till lightly golden brown.
Remove from oven and set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
*Spread passion fruit curd onto tart shell, bake for about 10 - 15 minutes (Because my curd consistency was not very thick, I added this step just to set it slightly, you can choose to omit this step if your curd consistency is very thick).

Meringue
same as recipe here.

Assemble
Spread passion fruit curd onto cooled tart shell (*if you opt not to bake the passion fruit curd like what I did above).
Cool in refrigerate for filling to firm up for at least an hour or two.
Pipe meringue onto the top of the tart, and use a blowtorch to brown the tips of the meringue.
Slice and serve.