passionfruit meringue tart

passionfruit meringue tart

• 8 May 2017

Whilst rearranging my deep freeze I found some almond shortcrust pastry and decided it was time to bake a tart. I found nets of passionfruit at the store so I came home with a bag and set about creating a passionfruit meringue tart.



This tart recipe was inspired by the one for mini passionfruit tarts I found in 'The Cook and Baker' recipe book. The filling is a key lime pie filling which uses eggs, condensed milk and lemon and passionfruit juice instead of lime juice. The filling comes almost directly from the book, whilst the pastry and topping are my own. 



The recipe has a number of steps. You can certainly make the tart shell ahead of time but there's a lot of cooling and resting involved so leave plenty of time when making this. However the end result is so delicious I think it's worth the effort.



The tart is topped with masses of billowy meringue and the meringue is only lightly sweetened so it nicely balances out the filling.



Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17 cm tart. If you'd like to make a 23 cm tart, just double all the ingredients for the filling and topping as the almond pastry recipe is sufficient to make a 23 cm tart shell. Please note for all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.



Passionfruit Meringue Tart
Almond shortcrust pastry
110 g (4 oz) cold unsalted butter, diced
¼ cup icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
¼ cup almond meal
1⅓ cups plain flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
Cold water

Filling
2 egg yolks
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
200 g condensed milk
60 mls lemon juice
65 mls strained passionfruit juice

Topping
2 egg whites
113 g caster sugar

Pastry
To make the pastry, combine all the dry ingredients in a food processor, and whiz for a few seconds until well combined and free of lumps. Add the cold butter and whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and sufficient cold water and whiz until a soft dough just starts to form around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and gather the pastry into a ball; flatten slightly before wrapping in plastic and placing in the fridge. Refrigerate the pastry for 30 minutes. You’ll only need about half of the pastry dough for this recipe. The pastry freezes well so just wrap the remaining pastry in plastic wrap and store in the freezer.

Grease a 17cm springform tin. Roll out the pastry quite thinly then line the base and bring the pastry 3 cm up the sides of the tin to form a pastry case. Line with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans. Chill for 30 minutes before baking. Preheat oven to 190°C and bake the pastry shell for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely before filling.

Filling

Lower the oven temperature to 170°C. In a small bowl, combine the egg yolks with the lemon rind. Stir in the condensed milk followed by the juices. Mix thoroughly before pouring the filling into the pastry case. Bake for 30 minutes or until the filling is just set. Allow to cool completely before refrigerating the tart for at least an hour.



Topping
Preheat oven to 200°C. Place the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer and best until whites form stiff peaks. Add the caster sugar a tablespoon at a time beating well in between. Beat for a further 5 minutes or until the sugar has completely dissolved. Place the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a 1.5 cm plain tube and pipe decoratively over the filling starting from the pastry edge. Place the tart case on 2 folded tea towels on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes or until the meringue is lightly coloured. Cool on a rack before returning to the fridge to firm up the filling.



The tart keeps for a few days, stored in an airtight container in the fridge.



I shared the tart with my neighbours and enjoyed the rest of the tart all on my own because I decided the tart was a bit too fragile to transport to work via the gym. Well at least that was my excuse!

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian