Passionfruit and coconut slice

I should probably get the hang of taking better photos of my food. "No, really, I swear it was better looking than this!"






Pastry:
125 g (4 oz) butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup plain (all purpose) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt

Filling:
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup plain (all-purpose) flour
1 1 /2 cup (12 fl oz) cream
160 ml (5 1/2 fl oz) coconut milk
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup (4 fl oz) passionfruit pulp


Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). To make the pastry, place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and creamy. Add egg and vanilla essence and beat well.

Add sifted flour, baking powder and salt, and stir until combined and the mixture forms a sticky dough. Flour hands and press pastry evenly into the base of a greased and baking paper-lined tin. Bake pastry base in the oven for 15 minutes.

To make filling, place eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk until pale. Add coconut, flour, cream, coconut milk, lemon juice, zest and passionfruit pulp, and stir to combine.

Pour filling over pastry base in the tin. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden (mine took about an hour). Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin.

When cool, slice into squares. Makes 20 squares.


From a recipe by Bill Granger

Passionfruit Melting Moments

I had a baking failure tonight and wound up throwing out a whole batch of cookies. DDD:

Perhaps we should focus on memories of happier times. Here are some cookies I recently made for a high tea. We had a really lovely afternoon and it was so nice sampling everyone's homemade food.





250g unsalted butter
40g (1/3 cup) icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
185g (1 1/2 cups) self-raising flour
60g (1/2 cup) custard powder

Passionfruit filling:
60g unsalted butter
60g (1/2 cup) icing sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp


Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Line two baking trays with baking paper

Beat eggs and sugar until light and creamy. Beat in vanilla essence.

Sift in flour and custard powder. Mix to a soft dough.

Roll level tablespoons into 28 balls and place on trays. Flatten slightly with a floured fork.

Bake 20 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool on wire rack.

For filling, beat butter and sugar then beat in passionfruit pulp. Use filling to sandwich biscuits together. Leave to firm before serving.

Lemon and Passionfruit Tarts

A little dessert experiment cooked up with friends, using a desserts cookbook and whatever ingredients we had to hand. We substituted a lot of ingredients - raw sugar for caster sugar, puff pastry for filo pastry - it worked out fine!



Lemon and Passionfruit Tarts with Berries

60g unsalted butter
90g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons self-raising flour
60ml (1/4 cupe) lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 passionfruit, pulp removed
3 sheets filo pastry
125g (1 cup) fresh berries


Preheat oven to 180C.

Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the flour, lemon juice, zest and passionfruit pulp, and beat until well combined.

Carefully line muffin tins with pastry. Pour in the lemon mixture and bake for 20-25 minutes or until set.

Serve topped with fresh berries and cream (we used hand-whipped cream, mixed with passionfruit pulp).

Makes 6.