In Season - Passionfruit

Passionfruit - Passiflora edulis
Brazil

HOME GROWING: Will grow in most places, tolerating some frost. Plant fresh seed and encourage the vine up a trellis, pergola or fence. Available in several varieties producing pink, purple or yellow fruit. Does well in most soil types, but appreciates feeding during fruiting periods. The vine is attractive with glossy green leaves and beautiful flowers.

TO EAT: Slightly wrinkly passionfruit will have more pulp and a sweeter flavour. Fresh (or frozen) passionfruit can be added to juices and smoothies, basic muffin recipes, heaped onto ice cream, stirred through yoghurt, plopped into muesli and enjoyed straight from the shell with or without a spoon!

FREEZING: During fruiting season you can freeze excess passionfruit whole, scrape pulp into containers, ice-cube trays or snack-size snaplock bags. You can mix 2 parts pulp to 1 part sugar to prevent pulp breaking down, but I never bother and ours keeps and defrosts fine. Passionfruit has a freezer life of about 12 months.
Iceblocks: Mix 1 part passionfruit pulp and one part fresh juice in re-useable moulds. Delicious!

Passionfruit Syrup (1 cup)
Approx. 8 large passionfruit
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
Halve passionfruit and scoop out pulp into a sieve. Rub through sieve to separate juice and seeds. Discard seeds (or save to add to another recipe not requiring much juicy pulp) and measure juice to 100ml. In a small saucepan mix sugar and water and stir to dissolve. Bring to the boil and boil for 5 - 7 mins or until syrup spins a thread when dropped from the tines of a fork. Add passionfruit juice (and some of the seeds if you wish - for looks), return to boil and boil for 1 minute. Pour into hot, sterilised bottles of your choice and seal while hot. Boil the bottles 10mins. This recipe is easily doubled, tripled etc. Best kept in the fridge. Can be used as a cordial or syrup for desserts.

Passionfruit Jam (1.8kg)
24 passionfruit
5 cups cold water
1 cup water
1 lemon
5 cups sugar
Wash fruit well. Scoop the pulp from the passionfruit into a container, cover and place in refrigerator. Put half the passionfruit shells with the 5 cups of water into a bowl and leave to stand overnight. Bring to the boil with the water and boil for about 30 minutes, or until inside of shells are tender. Scoop out this pulp and discard the thin paper skin that remains. Discard the cooking water. Chop or mash the pulp and put into jam pan with fruit pulp and seeds. Add the second measure of water and bring to the boil. Add the juice of the lemon. Add sugar and boil briskly until the jam will set when tested. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before pouring into hot, dry jars. Seal when cold. Store in cool, dark place.

Passionfruit and Lemon Butter (3 cups)
4 eggs, beaten and strained
¾ cup sugar
125g butter
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
½ cup lemon juice
1 cup (approx. 12) passionfruit
Place all ingredients in top half of a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, a stainless steel mixing bowl over a large pot so that the bottom of the bowl rests well into the pot works just as well. Stir until combined over simmering water. When mixture thickly coats the wooden spoon. Pour into hot sterilised jars and seal when cool. Store in fridge and use within a couple of weeks.

Passionfruit Icing – for most cakes, biscuits, slices…
1 ¼ cups icing sugar
2 passionfruit
15g butter
Melt butter over low heat. Remove from heat and add sifted icing sugar and passionfruit pulp. Beat well until smooth.