We’ve all heard of lemon meringue pie. But what about passion fruit meringue pie? Or, tart, in this case. Pie, tart… whatever you call it, it’s a crust with some filling that belongs in my mouth.
A delightfully tart passion fruit curd makes up the filling of this impressive looking dessert, with a fluffy, marshmallow-like meringue floating, cloud-like, on top of the curd. While the curd on its own is almost too sour to be enjoyable, when paired with the meringue topping and buttery pastry crust it settles into perfection.
Like liquid gold. In a pastry crust.
Being that this was my first time EVER making meringue pie, I think I did pretty darn good. Meringue is a tricky beast, or so I hear. I definitely need to work on my ‘peak’ technique, as mine looks more like monster fur than what I envision meringue pie looking like. I think I may have overbeaten my meringue by a tiny bit, yielding a slightly stiffer meringue that didn’t want to pull up quite as freely. But next time, well, next time I’ve got this. You meringue purists are probably going to scold me for over-toasting my meringue too, but I’ll just say I’m one of those people that likes their marshmallows charred and crispy. And since meringue is basically half-way to being a marshmallow anyway, well, let’s just say you’re lucky I stopped when I did. Plus, torches are fun. When they work properly, at least. (Note to self: hold the refill can upside down. Otherwise you might just think your stupid torch is broken and order a new one…)
I adapted the recipe slightly to make mini tartlets, halving the curd recipe (also because I didn’t want to waste a good 2/3 of my precious passion fruit on one recipe). As it stands, I got 3 tartlets (using this pan) and 3 itty bitty mini tarts (in this pan) out of half a batch of curd. A full batch would give you more than enough for a 9 or 10-inch tart, depending on the depth and volume of your tart pan. Heck, I think you’d even be fine making this into a 9-inch pie.
We’re half-way through passion fruit week, and I’m not done yet. In fact, in addition to the third recipe I planned on posting this week, I may or may not have two other little recipes to share as well. I told you I was going to put that $12 bag of passionfruit to good use. Total Time: 8 hours
