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!

CBC 18 - White Chocolate Passionfruit Truffles ... A Lesson in Cheering One's Self Up!

"Hallo, Pooh", said Piglet.

"Hallo, Piglet. This is Tigger."

"Oh, is it?" said Piglet, and he edged round to the other side of the table. "I thought Tiggers were smaller than that."

"Not the big ones," said Tigger.

- Tigger from Winnie the Pooh

You may be wondering just what this quote has to do with this post!  I'm a bit of a Winnie the Pooh fan, always have been, always will be!  Tigger and Eeyore are my two all time favourite characters, by nature I think I lean more towards the Eeyore 'outlook' on life, a bit gloomy and 'woe is me' when the chips are down.  But in reality there is an inner Tigger within me just itching to be let loose.  I know I've mentioned before about my adventures in America and my various friends nicknames at camp, can't recall if I have ever shared mine though?  I'll err on the side of caution and assume not (see, that comment is a prime example of that little Eeyore on my shoulder!).  My nickname was 'Tig'.  It wasn't uncommon to hear me utter "My name is Tig.  T. I. G.  That's short for Tigger because everyone knows the most wonderful thing about Tigger is that he is the only one!"  Apparently just saying "Hi.  My name is Tig" with an Australian accent in America leads to confusion!  Who knew?

So, back to the quote!  I've been feeling a bit gloomy lately.  I've been a bit under the weather and after several visits to the doctor and various prescriptions later I am at the point where I am sick to death of myself!  Some cheering up is in order, which is where Tigger (the quote above is one of my favourites and always makes me smile!) and these very scrummy Passionfruit Truffles come into the equation.

I've waxed lyrical about my love of passionfruit on countless occasions now.  By now there probably isn't a person on earth who doesn't know how much I love passionfruit.  So when this love is combined with two of my other loves, white chocolate and truffles, and we have a creation of such splendiferous proportions that it just has to be tried to be believed.

I started by making a passionfruit puree;

Passionfruit Puree

Puree the fruit in a food processor or blend until completely smooth (I did this for the strawberry puree,  also pictured, but for the passionfruit puree I just pressed the pulp through a fine sieve so I got the juice but none of the black pips, I was worried a blender would result in little black flecks) and use a scale to ensure an accurate weight on your puree.  Weigh out enough icing sugar to equal 10% of the total weight of the puree (the example the book gives is for every 10 ounces of puree add 1 ounce of sugar).  Return the puree and the icing sugar to the food processor or blender, and mix until smooth and well combined.  Strain the puree through a fine mesh sieve before using to remove seeds or impurities.

Taken from 'Making Artisan Chocolates' by Andrew Garrison Shotts

I've stored my purees in the fridge but they can also be frozen so you have the flavour of fresh fruit even in the darkest depths of winter.

Then yesterday, I should have meet up with a group of Scottish based food bloggers at the Foodie Festival.  But owing to the fact that the sun still seems to be tattooing the backs of my eye balls with the light I had to cancel at the last minute.  I was very disappointed.  So to cheer myself up I headed to the kitchen to put that puree to good use.

White Chocolate Passionfruit Truffles

175ml double cream

230g white chocolate, finely chopped

3 tbsp passionfruit puree

Place the cream in a medium saucepan over a medium heat until it just comes to a simmer.  Remove from the heat and immediately sprinkle the chocolate into the cream.  Cover and allow to sit for 5 mins; the heat should melt the chocolate.  Stir very gently until smooth.

Whisk in the passionfruit puree.  Pour the mixture into a shallow bowl.  Cool to room temp, cover with plastic wrap, then allow to sit, preferably overnight, until firm enough to roll.  (Or you may refrigerate ganache until firm, about 4 hours).

Use a small scoop or melon baller to form the ganache into balls.  Place them in a single layer on a baking sheet and refrigerate until very firm.

Temper another 230g white chocolate.  Dip the truffles into the tempered chocolate, making as thin and even coating as possible.  Place the dipped truffles on a baking tray that has been lined with a piece of acetate.  Place some tempered chocolate in a small zipper top plastic bag; snip off a bottom corner and pipe zigzags on each truffle.  Refrigerate until firm.  Place in fluted paper cups, if desired, and serve at room temp.

Makes between 25 and 30 truffles

Adapted from 'Truffles'

I made a couple of changes to the original recipe.  Firstly I used white chocolate instead of milk, but I'd like to try it with milk chocolate to see what it does to the flavour of the passionfruit.  Not sure I would have ever combined milk chocolate and passionfruit normally but I will soldier on in the name of experimentation lol.

The little buggers even disappear while getting their photo's taken!

My other change was unplanned.  The ganache tasted so good that before I knew it Hubby and I had managed to eat half the batch before I had even thought about tempering the chocolate.  Over the course of last night and today the truffles have slowly disappeared of the tray until it got to the point that there was no need to temper any chocolate because there weren't any truffles left for dipping!  Oops!

But I can 100% positively promote both Tigger and these truffles as a sure fire way for cheering yourself up when you are feeling a little on the 'Eeyore' side ;0)

Passionfruit Gems

How do you spend your Sunday night's?  Personally, I like to try and escape the enveloping darkness of doom (i.e. returning to work!) by picking a book from the shelf and loosing myself in its pages for a few hours.  Not a 'novel' kind of a book either, not a page turner of a book with characters and storyline's, no siree, its always a recipe book!  Yes I am one of those people who has a pile of cookbooks beside my bed and I feel no shame in admitting that ;0)

So this recipe comes from one of my Sunday night musings, a book my Mum sent me for Christmas last year called quite simply 'Cookies'.  Its an Australian Women's Weekly publication and is stuffed full of amazing looking cookies.  It comes as no surprise that the ones to catch my eye use Passionfruit which has got to be one of my all time favourite flavours ever.

Passionfruit Gems
150g plain flour
75g SR flour
2 tbsp custard powder
110g icing sugar
90g cold butter, chopped
1 egg yolk
60ml passionfruit pulp (about 1 1/2 passionfruits)
Butter Icing
125g unsalted butter, softened
240g icing sugar
2 tbsp milk

Process the dry ingredients and butter together until crumbly; add egg yolk and passionfruit pulp, pulse until ingredients come together.

Loving that colour!

Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth.  Roll between sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick; refrigerate for 30 mins.

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C.  Grease oven trays; line with baking paper (I hate greasing oven trays and as I had run out of baking paper I floured the tray's instead).

Using a 4cm round flower shaped cutter, cut rounds from dough.  Place about 3cm apart on oven trays.

Bake for about 10 mins.  Cool on wire racks.

Make the butter icing; beat the butter in a small bowl with an electric mixer until it is as white as possible.  Gradually beat in half the sifted icing sugar, milk, then the remaining icing sugar.  (I still had half a passionfruit left over so I added this to the icing and reduced the amount of milk accordingly).

Spoon the icing into a piping bag fitted with a small fluted tube.  Pipe stars onto cookies.

Makes 70
'Cookies' Australian Women's Weekly

These are yummy!  However, I have a few points to highlight.  I got far less than 70 cookies from the dough, which I am prepared to admit is probably down to me [ahem] firstly I need to readdress my idea of what 5mm looks like, secondly the smallest cutter I have is 48mm so my cookies were not only thicker but bigger too - I don't mind this though.  And then I discovered that along with running out of baking paper I also had an empty packet of piping bags sat in my draw, very helpful!  So I had to spoon the icing onto the cookies, they don;t look as pretty as they should but thankfully that doesn't affect the flavour at all ;0)

My Mum's Pav

Growing up a family get together was never complete without some piece of domestic goddess-ery from my Mum.  A chocolate cream cake for 'one of the kids' birthday's or a coffee and walnut cake for my Grandparents on their big day. 

In later years Chocolate Profiteroles stuffed to busting point with freshly whipped cream and drizzled with a  rich and sticky chocolate sauce was her preferred method for wowing the crowds at parties.  But the one thing, the constant mainstay, of her sweet toothed arsenal was her pav.  I never appreciated it fondly enough until I moved to the other side of the world, absence does make the heart grow ever fonder!

Because my Mum was such a dab hand in the kitchen I never really needed to learn to cook ... that and the fact that in full flow the kitchen belonged to my Mother and no-one else, only the foolish or uninitiated would dare enter!  My baking experience comprised pretty much entirely of pikelets and a family sized chocolate cake taken from my High Schools fundraising cook book.  Home Ec taught me how to make pizza and traffic light sandwiches though!  So there is no tale here of learning to bake at my mothers apron strings, just pure gluttony once  her magic was produced at the family table. 

Anyway, my point is that my Mum makes the best pav's.  Ever!  There was never any point in me learning to make them when she was such a pro.  Now I've been in the UK for 8 years and my taste buds have been crying out for a slice of Pav ... time to bite the bullet!  Below is my Mum's recipe for Pav, everything else is a freak of nature ;0)

My Mum's Pav
4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1 tsp each cornflour, white vinegar, vanilla extract
4 tbsp boiling water

In my Mother's words you add all these together and 'beat like hell'!  Further questioning managed to narrow this down to 10 mins of beating at 'full bore on my kenwood'.  I wasn't sure what a kenwood's 'full bore' would translate to with Big Bertha, I opted originally for speed 6 and then got impatient and threw caution to the wind and bumped it up to 8, but I did beat it for the full 10 minutes, which did seem a bit excessive to me.  Of course, my Mum's instructions were true to her word, the egg whites fluffed up to a soft satin white.  I used a pie dish to draw a circle on the underside of some baking paper and then spooned the fluffy egg whites on to it, shaping as I went.  I say shaping in a very general way, Mum usually gets out the palette knife and smooths the top and sides with deft movements, my attempt is far more 'rustic'.  This was then baked in an oven preheated to 170C for 10 mins, the heat was then reduced to 150C and baked for another 30 mins.  Once the timer bleeps turn the oven off but leave the pav in the oven until its cold.

Makes 1 big pav

I was so pleased with this first attempt, just the way a remember a pav tasting.  Hubby, who doesn't even like pav has had about 3 slices today.  A thumbs up in anybodies book!

This pav has been smothered in loads (and I mean loads!) of softly whipped cream, topped with a punnet of raspberries, the contents of 3 passionfruit and a punnet of strawberries halved or quartered.  Traditionally, Mum would slice a banana and place this on the pav before smothering the cream over.  The fruit would then get piled on and a well known crumbly type chocolate confectionery bar, sprinkled over the top. 

Next time I think I'll try making some individual pavs, Mum says that she has used this recipe to make generous tablespoon sized mini pavs with great success.  Bake them at a constant 150C for 3/4 of an hour and they come out all chewy and ready for devouring!

Daydreamer's Bliss

What's in a name?  I couldn't decide what to call my latest drink concoction, a mocktail no less!  I'll wait while you pick yourself up off the floor ... I know, me and mocktails!  I was shocked too ;0)

Anyway, back to the not deciding part.  I had my drink in hand and the beanbag and I were vying for ultimate sun worshiping position on the balcony, the competition being the clothes horse!  Sun beating down, birds singing and Hubby out for the afternoon with the boys so no World Cup bellowing in the background.  Bliss.  A sip of the mocktail, I closed my eyes and the balcony turned into a white sandy beach on a caribbean island.  Sigh.  If only! 

So what to call this drink that is very loosely based on Nigella's Pussyfoot.  I had to adapt the recipe a bit owing to the fact that I'm not that keen on grapefruit juice.  Actually I'm not that keen on grapefruit period.  I wasn't too sure what to come up with as an alternative so I headed to the juice isle in my local supermarket and pretty much grabbed one of every flavour that I do like.  Thankfully creation number one is a winner. 

I toyed with the idea of Swaying Teapots (instead of Palm Trees) but being a mocktail there won't be much swaying going on.  So I've settled on Daydreamer's Bliss ... but if you can think of a better name then do let me know ... I'll be back on that caribbean island three floors up ;0)

Daydreamer's Bliss
3 cups orange juice
3 cups tropical juice
3 cups orange and passionfruit juice
3 tbsp grenadine
3 tbsp lime juice
Ice Cubes

Add all the ingredients into a pitcher (being the sado that I am I love it when the grenadine sinks to the bottom and turns everything a lovely girly flush of pink!)

Stir to combine and serve in a nice tall glass with accessories of your choice.

Snowflake Tart

I'm back!  We celebrated Christmas with Hubby's family at Sis in Law's place in Bathgate this year.  Bro in Law even managed to make it up from London, although Heathrow did its best the throw a spanner in the works, he at least managed to get a flight unlike so many others.  Poor people, such a rotten time of year to be stuck at an airport! 

This year I was in charge of dessert for the big day.  Bro in Law is a huge fan of pavs and had asked for one months before Christmas so for him I made Mum's Pav smothered in freshly whipped cream and thoroughly doused in the contents of about 6 passionfruit Nigella style!

I also made this White Chocolate Tart.  I had attempted to be artistic and make it look like a snowflake using a holly leaf cutter and some white chocolate modelling paste.  If you look at it from a distance and screw your eyes up a wee but you can kind of see the effect!  It tasted pretty good though.  And it keeps well which is a bonus seeing as we didn't really get to the desserts or sweet treats until Boxing Day, we had a late lunch on Christmas Day and nobody could fit another ounce of food in after that!

White Chocolate Tart
Pastry
225g plain flour
100g butter
25g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp cold water
Custard
3 eggs
300ml double cream
50g caster sugar
150g white chocolate
1 x 250g tub mascarpone cheese
Icing sugar to serve

You will need to 28cm loose bottomed flan tin. Preheat the oven to 200C/ fan 180C. To make the pastry, whizz the flour and butter in a processor until it becomes breadcrumbs. Add sugar, egg yolk and water and whizz again until combined into a ball.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface to about 5cm bigger than the tart tin. Line the tin, trim the edge and prick the base with a fork. Set aside to rest in the fridge.

Break the chocolate into a bowl and melt gently over a bowl of barely simmering water, stir occasionally until melted. Measure the eggs, cream and sugar into a bowl and whisk together until blended. Whisk in the melted chocolate and mascarpone until smooth with no lumps.

Line the pastry tin with baking paper and baking beans. Cook in preheated oven for about 10 mins. Remove the beans and paper and return the pastry shell to the oven at the same temp for a further 5 mins or until the pastry shell has dried out.

Pour the custard into the tart tin. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C/fan 160C fro about 20 mins until the filling is set. Once cooked set aside to cool, remove from the tin, dust with icing sugar and serve cold.

Serves 8
Country Kitchen, March 08

• Tart can be made up to 2 days ahead and kept in the fridge. Freezes well cooked.

I didn't use the pastry recipe above, as I already had a healthy amount of sweet shortcrust resting in the fridge for some mince pies so I used some of that instead.  Once it was 'decorated' I sprinkled some little gold stars over and to serve with both the pav and the tart I made some Vanilla and Raspberry Sauce.  The tart really benefited from another flavour to help cut through the richness of that chocolate custard ... and Bro in Law even introduced me to the perks of some leftover sauce on toast!!!

Christmas Day Feast - Part Two - Cocktails and Christmas Lunch

The main event! I've had to put it in a new post as there were starting to be too many labels!

A Passionate Affair

15ml passionfruit liqueur

10ml passionfruit in syrup

120ml chilled brut champagne

Combine passionfruit liqueur and passionfruit in a flute; top with chilled champagne.

Serve in a 150ml glass champagne flute.

Serves 1

The Australian Women's Weekly Cocktails Book

Yum - this was just the tonic to help me get Christmas lunch ready ;0)

Christmas Lunch

We're not ones for a whole roast turkey or a ham joint that lasts for days and days afterwards. And there are more than one or two fussy eaters in this family so trying to find something that suits everyone is pretty much impossible! I settled on pan fried duck breasts (remember the great Duck Hunt?) for all of us apart from Hubby. He won't eat duck so instead he had a barbie with sausages and burgers. I was going to make him the chicken with chorizo and mozzarella that I've blogged about before but the chicken we bought just two days before Christmas was already off!!! He was very happy with his barbie all the same though.

Duck with Madeira and Blueberry Sauce
4 duck breasts (skin left on)

4 garlic cloves, chopped

Grated rind and juice of 1 orange

1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Salt and pepper

Madeira and Blueberry Sauce

150g blueberries

250ml Madeira

1 tbsp redcurrant jelly

Use a sharp knife to make several shallow diagonal cuts in each duck breast. Put the duck in a glass bowl with the garlic, orange rind and juice and the parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir well. Turn the duck in the mixture until thoroughly coated. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 1 hour.

Heat a dry, non stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the duck breasts an d cook for 4 mins, then turn them over and cook for a further 4 mins, or according to taste. Remove from the heat, cover the frying pan and leave to stand for 5 mins.

Halfway through the cooking time, put the blueberries, Madeira and redcurrant jelly into a separate saucepan. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins, then remove from the heat.

Slice the duck breasts and transfer to warmed serving plates. Serve with the sauced poured over and accompanied by new potatoes and a selection of green veg.

Serves 4

Ultimate Christmas Book

This duck was amazing! I think they must have been raised by Arnold Schwarzenegger though, they were massive and ended up taking twice as long to cook them, they were lovely and moist and pink inside still, even if the skin side of the breast was a little darker [ahem: black] than I would have really liked it to be. Oh well!

Of course, being Christmas, I didn't serve it with plain old boiled potatoes and a selection of green veg!

Bill's Mini Potato Gratins

600g potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced

185ml cream

1 garlic clove

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C. Cut a piece of baking paper into 16 strips 15 x 2cm. Line 6 x 125ml muffin tins with the strips, in a criss cross pattern with strips overlapping on each side. This will create little handles to remove your gratins with.

Place all ingredients in a bowl and toss to combine. Layer the potatoes in the muffin tins and pour over any remaining liquid. Place in the oven and cook for 40 mins.

Serves 6

Bill's Open Kitchen Book

I've had this recipe ear marked to make for a long time but never got the chance to actually make it. Very yummy indeed and went really well with the duck and other veg. I must have smaller muffin pans though as I doubled the recipe and ended up getting 2 whole muffin tins out of it (that's 24 mini gratins!)

Honeyed Winter Salad

1 butternut squash, cut into thin wedges

2 red onions, halved and cut into wedges

4 parsnips, cut into wedges

3 tbsp olive oil (try garlic or basil infused)

1-2 tbsp clear honey

1 small ciabatta,roughly torn into pieces (tomato and olive ciabatta works well)

1 tbsp sunflower seeds, optional

225g bag leaf spinach

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

Heat oven to 220C / fan 200C. Put the vegetables into a large roasting tin, drizzle with half the olive oil and season to taste. Roast for 20 mins, turning once in a while until softened. Drizzle with the honey. Scatter torn ciabatta and sunflower seeds over the top and return to the oven for a further 5 mins or until toasted.

Put the spinach into a large bowl and tip in the vegetables and ciabatta. Whisk the vinegar, mustard and remaining oil together, season to taste and toss into the salad until the spinach wilts slightly. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

Good Food Vegetarian Christmas - Christmas 09

This salad seemed like such a good idea at the time! Although the veg was cooked it never turned an appetising 'golden' colour and the ciabatta was decidedly soggy. I would probably try this again but not on Christmas day when there a whole host of other dishes timed to be ready at the same time as this needed much longer than the stated time to cook properly. Aside from that it would have been lovely. I also added a bag of chantenay carrots.

Simple Braised Peas

50g butter

2 bunches of spring onions, trimmed and thinly sliced

900g frozen peas

125ml fresh veg stock, hot

1 bunch of fresh chives, optional (I forgot to add this!!!)

Melt the butter in a large pan over a medium - low heat. Add the spring onions and cook gently for 1 min, until soft. Increase the heat and add the peas and stock. Season, cover and cook for 4 mins. Sprinkle with the chives, if using, to serve.

Serves 8 (baby elephants! This recipe makes a lot!)

Can't remember where this one came from but it gets made quite a bit cause its so yummy and lets face it, peas need all the help they can get to be more appealing!

So now it has taken me almost the same amount of time to get these posts done I'm off to have myself another Passionate Affair (oh ah missus!), some leftovers and a leisurely afternoon reading all my new cook books that Santa bought me ;0)

Have a relaxing Boxing Day!

PS - Can't believe I forgot to add dessert to the post!!! We had raspberry and White Chocolate trifles, I blogged about them not long ago so if you would liek to see the recipe please click here.

Sunshine Smoothie

If you have had a weekend full of over indulging (I'm not naming any names here!) then maybe it is time to ring the changes with a healthy kick start to the day?  I've never been an enormous fan of smoothies for breakfast, don't get me wrong, a smoothie (in general) has its place, but to me a fruit drink was never going to fill me up enough to get me through to lunch time like a bowl of cereal or a couple of pieces of toast.  Joyfully, I was wrong!  My hips will be thanking me by Hogmanay I'm sure ;0)

Tropical Breakfast Smoothie
1 mango
1 orange
Juice from a lime
4 cubes of frozen passionfruit pulp
4 tbsp natural yogurt - low fat naturally!!

Place everything into the blender and whizz to your heart's content.  Sunshine in every mouthful!

Serves 2

... and now that I am feeling so positively virtuous I'm off to see how much chocolate can be smuggle into my Christmas baking!

Apricot Passionfruit Jam

Time for a non-Easter post!  The beauty of having time off work means there is loads of time to flick through stored up recipes.  For me these recipes are often the long forgotten and stored up bounty just waiting for some free time so they can see the light of day.  This recipe comes from that bounty and it hasn't disappointed - which is a good thing seeing as I now have 4 very large jars of it sitting in my fridge.

Apricot Passionfruit Jam
500g dried apricots
6 cups water
1 1/2kg sugar
1/2 cup passionfruit pulp

Chop fruit and cover with water.  Soak for 24-36 hours.  Transfer to a large saucepan and bring to the boil.  Add sugar and boil until set (30-50 mins).  Remove from heat and add passionfruit pulp.  Stand for 10 mins, stirring now and again to distribute.  Pour into sterilised jars.  Wipe with vinegar and seal.

Makes 7 x 250ml jars
http://www.cuisine.com.au/

I should have boiled mine for a bit longer I think, even though it passed the wrinkle test after 40 mins of boiling it seems to have a soft set.  It tastes wonderful though!  The reconstituted apricots are very sweet but the addition of the passionfruit cuts through the sweetness with its tart tropical tang.  I'm even considering making some scones just so I can further sample this jam!

Not all Panna Cotta's are created equal!

When I was searching for a recipe to make the Passion Fruit Panna Cotta's for Valentine's Day I came across quite a few that used Greek Yogurt as the base. To me this seemed like cheating a little bit - surely the real deal involved copious amounts of cream and gelatine to get the flavour and texture just right. Let's face it, there is nothing more disappointing in this (dessert obsessed) world of mine than a rubbery panna cotta ... OK maybe one that 'smooshes' all over your plate would be worse, jury is out on that one for me, they would both be a travesty in my book! So when i recently took delivery of lots (my fridge is still packed to the rim!) of Total Greek Yogurt I immediately knew that I wanted to give the yogurt based version a try. Purely for comparison reasons you understand.

Pannacotta al frutto della Passione (Passion Fruit Panna Cotta)

2 1/2 gelatine leaves, or 7g powdered gelatine

500ml greek yogurt (I used Total Greek Yogurt - the regular variety i.e. not 2% or 0%)

125g passion fruit seeds and pulp (from about 6 or 7 passion fruits)

100g caster sugar

Soak the gelatine leaves in a little cold water, or follow the packet instructions for softening the powdered gelatine. Tip the yogurt into a bowl and set aside.

Gently heat the passion fruit and sugar together for 5 mins, until the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat. Squeeze out the gelatine sheets and add to the pan, or add the powdered gelatine. Stir until the gelatine has dissolved, returning the pan to the heat if necessary.

Strain the warmed liquid through a sieve (to remove any undissolved gelatine and the passion fruit seeds) into the yogurt in the bowl. Stir to combine. Cool the panna cotta, then divide it between moulds or glasses.

Serves 4

The Italian Cookery Course

The result? Lets just sat that I think I have found my new favourite dessert ... for this week at least! The tart tang from the yogurt is there in the first mouthful but then it mellows as the passion fruit flavour starts to make itself known. Its smooth and creamy and an absolute delight to eat!

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!!!

Banana and Passionfruit Muffins with [Lemon] Icing

So many posts and so little time! Where does the weekend go?!?!? I'm just going to launch into this first recipe, I made it for Hubby when I spied the usual aging banana's ... only thing was by the time I'd gotten around to making these a couple of nights later I discovered that Hubby had eaten the banana's. Apparently they weren't as aging as I had first thought!

Banana and Passionfruit Muffins with Lemon Icing (at least its meant to be lemon - I made passionfruit instead!)

125g butter

315g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

150g light muscovado sugar

110g pecans, chopped

3 very ripe, medium bananas

Pulp of 3 passionfruit (about 3 1/2 tbsp)

Zest 1 medium lemon

65ml whole or semi skimmed milk

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

For the icing

150g icing sugar

Juice 1 medium lemon (I replaced this with the juice and seeds from a passionfruit)

Preheat the oven to 220C/fan 200C. Melt the butter and leave to cool slightly. Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl and stir in the sugar and the pecans. Peel and mash the bananas in another bowl and mix with the passionfruit pulp and lemon zest. Next, whisk the melted butter, milk and eggs into the fruit, then stir this mixture into the flour until combined; don't over mix or the muffins will be heavy. Divide the mixture between baking cases that are lining a 12 cup muffin tin. Bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 20 mins until risen and lightly golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

For the icing, whisk three quarters of the lemon juice into the icing sugar in a bowl. Then add enough of the rest of the lemon juice to make a thick spreadable icing; you may not need all the juice. Use to ice the tops of the muffins.

Makes 12 muffins

I'm not sure which magazine a clipped this recipe out of - it may well have been Feel Good Food

For me, not being a lover of banana, I don't particular care for these muffins. There just seemed to be a million and one flavours going on, the cinnamon seems a step too far with the lemon and passionfruit. That said, the mixture did smell very tropical while I was making it. If I was to make these again then I'd leave the cinnamon out ... Hubby is slowly eating his way through them but that is evidence enough that he isn't really that keen on them! If he had really liked them they would have disappeared before I'd had the chance to ice them ;0)