Passionfruit Curd ~ Bottled Sunshine

When I was little my brother and I used to play a game in our backyard that pretty much consisted of running a lap of our house; he would start first, I'd count to ten and then follow after him, with the goal being for me to catch him. Of course I now realise that the odds of this ever happening were hopelessly stacked against me and I was never going to win a race like this, bro being two years older and quite sporting and me being quite dumpy and not so sporty. Oh the innocence of youth!

The starting point for this game was always at the side of the house by the passionfruit vine, this being the toughest part of the course thanks to Mum's prized Azalea bush that was planted rather inconveniently in the middle of the track - if so much as one petal was found to be laying on the ground come dinner time then you knew not to bother asking for dessert! I'm pretty sure it was during one of my circuits of the house playing this game that I discovered what passionfruit tasted like. Heaven.

I have been overjoyed this 'summer' to find a plentiful supply of passionfruit here in the UK, an expensive supply but plentiful all the same. The fruit bowl has been overflowing with the crinkly purple fruits and I'm now at the point where I'm freezing them in ice cube bags so I can have a ready supply throughout the winter - that's how much I love passionfruit. One of my store cupboard stand bys now is Passionfruit Curd, all lovely and bright yellow and sunny looking - having a jar of this in the fridge almost makes the contents glow god like when you open the fridge door!

Passionfruit Curd

3 eggs

155g caster sugar

185ml fresh passionfruit pulp

125g unsalted butter, chopped

Whisk together the eggs, sugar and passionfruit pulp in a heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over a saucepan half filled with simmering water (make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water). Add the butter to the bowl and cook, stirring, for 10 mins or until the mixture thickens (this can take quite a bit longer if the passionfruit is nice and juicy). Transfer to a clean sterilised jar and set aside to cool.

Makes 500g

Australian Good Taste - January 2007

My preferred method for eating this is Nigella style. Darkened house, fridge door open and spoon in hand!

Breakfast Club - Smug Pancakes with Peach and Rosewater Curd

After my disappointment of last weekends Pancakes I retired to the couch to catch up on some of my Sky+ viewing.  By pure chance I had recorded an episode of Nigella Express where she made pancakes for her daughter and friends, using a pancake mix she had already prepared.  This was a true light bulb moment for me!  And this morning the mix was put to the test ~ it passed in flying colours, so I have renamed them 'Smug Pancakes'

Smug Pancakes
For The Pancake Mix
600g flour
3 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp salt
45g vanilla caster sugar

Mix all the ingredients together and store in a jar.

When ready to make the pancakes, proceed as below.

Make The Batter And The Pancakes
For each 150g pancake mix, add and whisk together
1 egg
250ml semi skimmed or full fat milk
15ml melted butter

Heat a flat griddle or pan with no oil.

Spoon drops of 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp of batter onto the hot griddle or into the pan and. when bubbles appear on the surface of the little pancakes, flip them over to make them golden brown on both sides.  a minute or so should do it.

Makes approx 15 pancakes
Nigella Express

These pancakes were soooooooooo good.  Really light and delicate.  If I'm being fussy then they were still a little on the flat side of fluffy, but they were a definite improvement on last weekends pancakes.  That said, I did make a couple of modifications which may have resulted in the finished product not being quite the same as they had been on the TV show.  I didn't add the melted butter, but only because I knew they were being served with curd, I figured there was enough butter on the offering already!  This did mean that the first two pancakes stuck fast to the non stick pan which is now soaking in the sink.  I ended up using fry lite in between batches to make sure they didn't stick.  Next time though I'll go whole hog and add the butter.  My batter seemed much runnier than Nigella's had on the show, so next time I think I'll cut back on the amount of milk.  I also added a bit more sugar than Nigella's recipe, I like sweet pancakes and the mix tasted a bit salty on first tasting.

This morning the pancakes were served with curd.  Passionfruit curd is a given these days ;0)
But with a couple of punnets of peaches in my fruit bowl needing to be eaten ASAP, I got to wondering about peach curd.  There were a few different recipes to choose from after a quick Internet search, all but one using lemon as one of the key ingredients.  My only problem with lemon in curds is that it can tend to overpower the flavour of the other ingredients, at the end of the day if I want to eat a curd that tastes like lemon then I'll make lemon curd!  The recipe below still uses lemon juice but in much less quantities than the others, and it had the added flavour of Rosewater which sparked my interest.

Peach and Rosewater Curd
4 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup fresh peach puree (put them in the blender or food processor to make)
lemon juice to taste, about 1 tsp
1/2 teaspoon rosewater (use regular water if you can't find this)
90g butter

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, peach puree, lemon juice, and rosewater.

Place over simmering water and stir constantly until thickened.

Remove from heat and beat in butter, bit by bit.

Strain well and chill.

Use on cake, ice cream, scones etc.
 
Group Recipes
 

 
I pureed the peaches with the skin on and then strained them, as much as I liked the pink flecks running through the puree I wasn't so sure it would look that appealing in the finished curd.  I'm really pleased with the end result though, it tastes amazing! While the peach is the main flavour the addition of the rosewater has added a little exotic touch to it at the same time.  When spooned over the pancakes I was in seventh heaven, it was a proper girly breakfast!

Clementine Curd

I don't know what it is but I always seem to feel a huge sense of achievement every time I make a batch of curd. Strange I know - but that's me in a nut shell! The most recent addition to my ever expanding collection of curd triumphs is courtesy of Jamie Oliver (generally Jamie and I admire from a far but not today!) when I was flicking through the December 09 / January 10 issue of his magazine and saw his recipe for Clementine Curd ~ I knew I had to give it a go.

I've not actually made it as far as spreading the finished product on a piece of bread or on a toasted crumpet, but the small teaspoon that I did test straight from the bowl had a wonderfully delicate clementine flavour. A word of warning - this recipe makes loads!

Clementine Curd

6 clementines

2 lemons

350g caster sugar

4 eggs, beaten

2 egg yolks, beaten

100g unsalted butter, diced

Grate in the fruit zest and squeeze the juice into a bowl with the sugar, eggs and yolks and mix to combine (I passed the eggs through a strainer to get rid of any of the white lumpy bits that can ruin the finished curd). Add the butter and place over a very low heat. Cook, constantly stirring, until the curd is thick and coats the back of a spoon (with the quantities listed here it does take a while but hang in there!). Pour into sterilised jars, seal and refrigerate. Use within two weeks.

Makes about 850g

Jamie Magazine - Dec 09 / Jan 10

Lime Curd

Today's post was going to be the Chocolate Cake I made for a friend's birthday but after yesterday's post there were quite a few mentions around the lime curd used to top the scones off, so I thought it was about time I posted the recipe!

This produces a tart but sweet curd that sets really well, not too thick, not too runny but my only real disappointment with it was the colour.  As Dom noted on the scones it isn't nearly green enough and he is right, its more luminous than lime and in some lights it even looks more peachy lemon!  (I do love how the lime zest teases you from within the curd though).  But if you can get past the colour issue the taste won't disappoint ;0)

Lime Curd
Finely grated zest and juice of 3 limes
225 g caster sugar
150 g unsalted butter
2 large eggs
2 egg yolks

Put the zest, juice, sugar and butter into a bowl and set the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, making sure that the base of the bowl does not touch the water.

Stir until the butter and sugar have dissolved. Beat the eggs together lightly, and sieve into the lime mixture. Stir continuously, until the mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon; the curd will thicken further on cooling.

Pour into a clean bowl and leave to cool. Store in sterilised screw top jars in the refrigerator.

Serves 4-6

Good Food Channel Website

Passionfruit Curd Cake

OMG! Words are not enough to describe how good this cake is!!! It's so yummy it will now be a regular (ish!) feature in my kitchen. The curd can of course be interchangeable, the cake is a wonderfully buttery Madeira type cake that will lend to all flavours. You won't be disappointed I promise ;0)

Passionfruit Curd Cake

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

170g unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups golden caster sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup passionfruit curd

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a loaf pan really well (I used the biggest one I have after reading about some overflow issues.)

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together to combine. Set aside.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until softened and very smooth and creamy, about 3 mins. Add the sugar and beat for a further 3 mins until mostly dissolved. Then add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition. When all the eggs are mixed in, add the vanilla extract.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and fold through, being careful not to over-mix. (There's that instruction that single handedly strikes fear to the very core of my heart!)

Put half the batter into the prepared loaf pan, pushing it out to the edges. Spread half your curd over the batter, keeping clear of the edges (this is not as easy as it sounds!) Cover the curd with the rest of the batter. Dollop the remaining curd on top of the cake and swirl a butter knife through if this effect is desired (I decided to add all my curd to the middle of the cake, it browns really quickly and I didn't want to waste any precious curd!)

Bake for about 50 mins, the loaf is ready when it's set and bounce back a little when pressed. Cover with foil if its browning too quickly. Let cool, serve at room temperature with extra curd, or ice cream ...

Serves 12 very generously

Credits go to - Pikelet and Pie (cool name for a food blog huh?) and 101 Cookbooks

Pikelet and Pie also used this mixture to make muffins - I might need to make another batch so I can have a cake all to myself. Normally Hubby isn't that fussed about passionfruit at all, especially when I leave the pips in but he has been taking slices to work with him to have with lunch!!!

Raspberries and Lemons!!!

Nearly another whole week since my last post!!!! Can't wait for Hubby's laptop to be back in good working order! I've been busy baking away but just not had the chance to get to my blog, or catch up with all my blog reading ... oh dear, its all getting a bit too much!

This weekend was spent int he kitchen making a whole host of things that I'm hoping to get on my blog very soon. In the meantime, here are two of the recipes I tried which have been keeping us going all week.

Raspberry Curd

175g raspberries (if using frozen, pat dry thoroughly - but I'm not sure why it gives this direction!)

100g unsalted butter, diced

200g golden caster sugar

The grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon

150ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 large free range eggs, beaten

Puree the berries in a food processor.

Place the butter, sugar, lemon zest and juice in a heatproof bowl and sit over a pan of simmering water. Stir all the time until thick. (I'm not sure what the recipe mean's by 'thick'? I just stirred until all the butter had melted and the mixture resembled the base mixture for a lemon curd). This can also be done in a microwave but we don't have one of those!

Place a plastic sieve over the bowl and push the eggs and berry puree through the sieve, so that any blobby bits of egg white and all raspberry pips remain in the sieve. Stir the buttery mixture as you push the berry mixture through the sieve.

Stir well then return to the pan of simmering water (or microwave) and cook for 5 to 6 mins until it thickens. It should have the consistency of lightly whipped cream and will firm up on cooling.

Spoon into warm, sterilised jars. Cover when completely cold and refrigerate. You can keep the curd for up to 4 weeks.

Makes about 2-3 jars

Taken from 'A Cooks Tour Of Scotland' by Sue Lawrence

I'm the first to admit that I maybe could have cooked the curd for a touch longer. This is the first recipe I have made from any of my Sue Lawrence books (I'm ashamed to say that this particular book has been in my collection for a good few years now!) and I'm not entirely convinced that it is the easiest recipe in the world to follow ... how to you stir a bowl of melted butter and sugar while pushing a raspberry puree through a sieve? Things got a bit messy! The end product was worth persevering through the recipe though.

I love the colour of the finished curd, very cheery for this time of year and the lemon juice really helps bring out the raspberry flavour. I've enjoyed Raspberry Curd on Crumpets (not homemade I'm afraid!) every morning for breakfast so far this week!

I also made Hubby a treat on Sunday, Lemon Cream Squares. I spotted this on Martha's Daily Cookie and had to give it a go as it was made up pf everything he loves. Lip puckering good they are too, we've been enjoying them for dessert ...

Creamy Lemon Squares

120g unsalted butter, at room temp, plus more for pan

1/2 cup icing sugar, plus more for dusting

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup plain flour

4 large egg yolks

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Juice from 3 large lemons

Preheat oven to 180C. Butter an 8 inch square baking pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides. Butter paper.

Make crust; using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Add flour and mix on low just until combined. Press dough into the bottom and 1/2 inch up sides of prepared pan. Prick all over with a fork. Bake until lightly golden, 15 to 20 mins.

Make filling; in a large bowl, whisk together yolks, condensed milk and lemon juice until smooth. Pour over hot crust in pan, return to the oven and bake until filling is set, 25 to 30 mins. Cool completely in pan.

Refrigerate until filling is firm, about 2 hours or up to 3 days. Using paper overhang, lift cake onto a work surface, cut into 16 squares and dust with icing sugar.

Makes 16

Martha Stewarts' Daily Cookie Website

Next time I'm going to add the zest to the mixture along with the lemon juice, it could be a touch more lip puckering. And maybe serve it with some cream too ;0)

Lemon Curd and Blueberry Loaf Cake

The picture of this loaf cake on the front cover of the March Good Food Magazine was crying out to be tried out in my own kitchen. I finally got the excuse to make it on Saturday when Hubby's Mum and sister joined us or dinner, this made the perfect after dinner treat.

Lemon Curd and Blueberry Loaf Cake

175g softened butter, plus extra for greasing

500ml tub greek yogurt (you need 100g in the cake, the rest to serve)

300g good quality lemon curd (you need 2 tbsp in the cake, the rest to serve)

3 eggs

Zest and juice 1 lemon, plus extra zest to serve, if you like

200g SR flour

175g golden caster sugar

200g punnet of blueberries (you need 85g in the cake, the rest to serve)

140g icing sugar

Edible flowers, such as purple or yellow primroses, to serve (optional)

Heat the oven to 160C/140C fan. Grease a 2lb loaf tin and line with a long strip of baking parchment. Put 100g yogurt, 2 tbsp lemon curd, the softened butter, eggs, lemon zest, flour and caster sugar into a large mixing bowl. Quickly mix with an electric whisk until the batter just comes together. Scrape half into the prepared tin. Weigh 85g blueberries from the punnet and sprinkle half into the tin, scrape the rest of the batter on top, then scatter the other half of the 85g berries on top. Bake for 1 hour 10 mins - 1 hour 15 mins until golden, and a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean.

Cool in the tin, then carefully lift onto a serving plate to ice. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and stir in enough lemon juice to make a thick, smooth icing. Spread over the top of the cake, then decorate with lemon zest and edible flowers, if you like. Serve in slices with extra lemon curd, greek yogurt and blueberries.

Cuts into 8-10 slices

Good Food Mag, March 2010

In my usual style, I managed to ice the cake but not decorate it. Oops! But it still tasted pretty good, Hubby even had seconds. Marie over at the English Kitchen also made this recipe not so long ago. She added a twist to her icing though and created a Streusel Topping instead which looked pretty divine if I do say so myself. Click here to check out Marie's version, you won't be sorry ;0)

Clementine Curd Cake

Why is it my Father In Law always decides to visit us when the cupboard is bare???  I swear the man has an inbuilt sensor just so he knows he'll get something freshly baked for his visit ;0)

This is a rehash of the Passionfruit Curd Cake that I made in March last year, except I swapped the passionfruit curd [sigh] for some clementine curd that was left over from The Mack Cake.

It might not look like much but Hubby and his Dad both really enjoyed this.  In fact, half the loaf left in a doggy bag for my father in law to enjoy at home later.  And Hubby has requested I bake another loaf with the remaining leftover curd so he can scoff it at work too.  Nuff said ;0)

Muffins etc

This weekend is the first weekend we've had since before the wedding when we've not had to be anywhere, do anything or have anyone over. Last weekend was supposed to be our first weekend, but that kinda got ruined by the whole wedding dress fiasco! So we're having a nice peaceful, relaxing weekend full of the kinds of things we like.

My list includes;

Having my wedding dress back - thank you Mags! You're a star! (Mags went and rescued it from the evil dry cleaners for me)

Blue skies and nice warm weather

Vegging out and watching Harry Potter

We've even managed a nice walk around Stockbridge this morning, popping into some of our favourite shops along the way ;0)

Baking - I decided seeing as we were spoiling ourselves this weekend that I would make each of us a treat. Hubby loves his lemon curd so I made some Lemon Curd Muffins for him and because we all know how much I love Passionfruit and White Chocolate I had to give this recipe a try;

Passionfruit and White Chocolate Muffins
2 cups SR flour, sifted
1/2 cup caster sugar
100g white chocolate, chopped
125g butter, melted, cooled
1/3 cup milk
2 eggs, lightly whisked
1/4 cup passionfruit pulp
1 tsp vanilla extract
Passionfruit Icing
1 1/4 cups pure icing sugar
2 tsp hot water
1 1/2 tbsp passionfruit pulp


Preheat oven to 200C. Lightly grease a 12 hole 1/3 cup capacity muffin pan.


Combine flour, sugar and chocolate in a bowl. Make a well in the centre.


Whisk butter, milk, egg, passionfruit and vanilla in a jug. Pour into the well. Gently fold until just combined. Three quarter fill muffin holes with mixture. Bake for 15 to 20 mins or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Stand in pan for 5 mins. Turn onto a wire rack.

Make passionfruit icing; stir icing sugar, water and passionfruit in a bowl until smooth. Spoon over muffins, allowing to drizzle down sides. (I think this possibly requires a wee bot more finesse than described!) Allow to set. Serve.


Makes 12
Taste Website


Lemon Curd Muffins
200g SR flour
100g golden caster sugar
1 large egg
75ml corn oil (original recipe actually says to use sunflower oil but I find the flavour of it over powers whatever its used in so I tend not to use it)
150ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
60ml lemon curd
For The Sugar Coating
60ml lemon curd
50g golden caster sugar


Heat the oven to 190C. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases. Sieve the flour into a bowl and stir in the sugar. In a large jug mix together the egg, oil, milk and vanilla extract using a fork. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir gently together until just combined. Put a tsp of mixture in the base of each paper case. Top with 1 tsp lemon curd. Top with the rest of the muffin mixture.

Bake for 10-15 mins until risen and firm. For the sugar coating, microwave the lemon curd on high for 1 min until melted. Put the sugar into a shallow bowl. Brush some melted curd on top of each muffin and dip the tops of each one in sugar to coat the tops.

Makes 12
Sweet and Simple Blog


PS - Just in case you're wondering Hubby's list includes watching the Grand Prix qualifying and eating the muffins lol

Breakfast Club - English Muffins and Lemon Curd

This mornings Breakfast Club was closer to Brunch by the time I managed to get my act together! I've been wanting to try and make some English Muffins for a while now, for some reason they always seem to be a bit of a challenge, especially first thing in the morning. But it seems that so many bloggers have already tried them and all have reported about how fantastic they are and so easy to make to boot that I decided to give it a go. I was quite pleased with how they turned out as well that I now throw my hat into the ring as well and declare that once you have tasted homemade English Muffins you will never resort to the shop bought variety ever again.

I surfed around quite a bit to find a recipe I was happy with, there are loads out there! But I finally settled on the one that Jules made over at Domestic Goddess In Training. (This blog is totally responsible for me first of getting into blogs and then setting up my own ~ boy does Jules have a lot to answer for lol).

English Muffins

110ml milk

25ml water

Large pinch of sugar

1 tsp dried yeast

225g strong white flour

Pinch of salt

Polenta for dusting

Heat milk, water and sugar into a saucepan until hand hot. Stir in yeast and leave for 15 mins to allow a froth to develop on the top.

In a large bowl pour yeast mixture into flour and salt and mix until you have a dough. Knead dough for 10 mins by hand until you have a soft elastic dough. Place in an oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave in a warm place to rise for an hour.

Knock back dough then roll out until about 1cm thick. Using an 8cm cutter cut out rounds and place on a baking sheet that has been sprinkled with a small amount of polenta. Once all of the rounds have been cut dust the top of the dough with more polenta. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place for 30 mins.

Heat a heavy based frying pan to low/med. (You'll need to grease the surface if its not a non stick pan). Cook the muffins in batches for 7 mins each side. While cooking the rest of the muffins place the cooked ones under a tea towel to keep warm.

Makes 8

The only thing I would try and do differently next time is maybe make the dough up as far as the polenta stage and then pop them in the fridge overnight. Then the next morning all I would need to do is take them out of the fridge and let them come back to room temp before cooking, not sure if that would effect the texture or quality in any way but I figure its worth a shot. Oh - and I'm going to try and buy an 8cm cutter too, I had a choice of a 78mm or an 86mm cutter, the piggy side of me opted for the bigger one which resulted in only 5 muffins, which worked out to be just enough for Hubby and I but not enough should visitors be here too.

The warm muffins were served with curd, passionfruit in my case and lemon for Hubby. Hubby has a bit of an obsession with Lemon Curd and tends to get distraught when he discovers the jar is empty, I'm learning that at all times there needs to be a lemon curd supply for him! I'm not sure what possessed me to try making lemon curd for the first time, I'd never ever tasted it before and all written material on the matter lead me to believe that it was incredibly difficult to make. Then I discovered a recipe in the back of Rachel Allen's 'Bake' which didn't strike me as being all that bad. Coincidentally at around the same time one of Nigel Slater's articles was published all about lemon curd and the one tip I took from it was to use a double boiler, that way the mixture has a defused heat source which reduces the risk of it turning into scrambled eggs with a hint of lemon thrown in! I've made this at least 100 times since and its never let me down.

Lemon Curd

75g butter

150 caster sugar

Finely grated zest and juice of 3 lemons

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

Place the butter, sugar, lemon zest and juice in a heatproof bowl and suspended over a pan of simmering water and heat very gently until the butter is melted.

Put the eggs and egg yolk into a bowl and beat thoroughly (make sure all the eggs are whisked, any unwhisked bits will show up in the finished curd).

Pour the beaten eggs into the melted butter mixture and stir carefully over a low heat until the mixture has thickened and will coat the back of a spoon. (If the mixture does start to scramble quickly push it through a sieve). Remove the bowl from the heat and pour into a sterilised jar.

Makes 250ml

Rachel Allen's 'Bake'