Recipe: Passion Fruit Tart

Passion Fruit is a strange thing. It gives the sense of great age, with its gnarled prehistoric skin, and an interior that looks like rotten eggs. The scent has something slightly rotten about it too - a sickly sweetness that verges on something having gone off......a little like the heady quality of fragole grapes. All of which makes it all the more intriguing that the taste of Passion Fruit is absolutely intoxicating. This is one of those desserts where the first mouthful is followed by complete silence around the table, as people contemplate the flavour....

For Four.

Ingredients: 4 sheets of Phyllo Pastry, each approx. 12" x 6"; 2 oz of Butter; 12 Passion Fruit; 4 Eggs; 5 oz of Sugar; 5 tablespoons of Cream.

Method:

1. Melt the Butter, brush the Phyllo sheets with it, and use them to make four individual Pastry Shells, fully cooked. Once you've removed the shells from the oven, re-set the temperature to 180 degrees C.

2. Cut the Passion Fruit in half, and scrape the innards into the bowl of your food processor; process at high speed for thirty seconds, just to break up the membranes, then pass this mixture through a fine sieve. Discard the pips and anything else which hasn't gone through the sieve.

3. Beat the Eggs and Sugar together, then mix in the Passion Fruit juice and finally the Cream. Divide this mixture between the pre-baked tart shells, and bake for twenty five minutes at 180 degrees C - when they're done, the tops should be slightly coloured, and the Egg mixture should be just firm (it can be slightly wobbly still, as it will continue to firm up as the tarts cool).

Serve, dusted with Icing Sugar, either on their own or accompanied by Lemon & Vanilla Ice Cream.