Sourdough starter - end wk 2 feeding and a mouth-watering tart


The sourdough starter is progressing well! See all those lovely bubbles? That is a good sign. One more week of feeding and discarding and feeding with new flour and water. This time next week will be Dough Making Day.


at end of 2nd week of feeding

So to relieve the tedium of repetitive sourdough-feeding postings, I thought of a lovely tart I had eaten just over a year ago in Sydney.

two divine tarts enjoyed at the Bourke Street Bakery in 2011

Sitting prettily in the row of enticing tarts it looked like a mini lemon meringue pie. When I read 'passion fruit' on its little label under the glass counter, that was it. The difficult decision to choose which tart was made simple. I adore passion fruit and eyeing the meringue-topped tart seemed like my pilgrimage to Bourke Street Bakery in Sydney was rewarded. Alleluia! It was mouth-wateringly delicious.

Today I wanted to recreate the flavour of that sunny Saturday morning in December 2011 with my sister-in-law. What good fortune, then, that the recipe for the tart is in the same book from which I am learning to bake sourdough. Perfect.

I am making passion fruit tarts with soft meringue.

I had to use bottled passion fruit (quelle horreur) but have no choice. I need to know the passion fruit is going to be sweet and juicy and I cannot be sure of that if I buy 'fresh' ones here in England they are going to be (a) sweet and (b) juicy. Thank goodness for bottling.

This recipe has three stages: pastry, filling, meringue. I opted to make the pastry one day and then the filling and meringue the next. The book gives good advice about making the pastry. It is a largish quantity and if one is going to go to the trouble, then one may as well make more than is necessary in order to completely by-pass a whole stage the next time one has the urge to make tarts.

Pastry: I made a sweet pastry. Combining butter, flour, icing sugar, egg and water a dough was formed and refrigerated for a couple of hours or overnight. Having no individual fluted tart tins I used patty pans. After the pastry had rested it was rolled out and put into the tins and then blind baked. Here's where I made a mistake: they should have been cooked thoroughly because the filling was not to be cooked in the shell, so they needed another 5-8 minutes' cooking. That's why they look a bit pale (except for that one up the back which must have been sitting in the oven hot spot).

cooling tart shells

Filling: a bavarois mix which is a mousse without the egg whites. The passionfruit pulp was sieved into a bowl, squashing the pulp down as much as possible.
Milk was warmed to high heat. Gelatin leaves were put into cold water to soften.
6 egg yolks, sugar and pulp were whisked in a bowl over steaming water, and the hot milk was was added, still whisking for a further 5 minutes.

Excess water was squeezed from gelatin leaves and whisked into passionfruit mixture, which was then poured through a sieve and refrigerated 30 minutes.

whipped cream and pasionfrut mixture

Lastly, cream was whisked to soft peak stage and then added to the passion fruit mixture.



folding whipped cream in, carefully

Tart shells were filled with the passionfruit cream.

Meringue: this was in the Italian style (Italian meringue!). I love making this type of meringue which incorporates cooled sugar syrup into the soft-peak egg whites.
Sugar and water are brought slowly to a temperature of  118 deg C and then taken immediately off the heat.
The syrup cools down as a soft-peak stage with 4 eggs whites is reached. It is slowly poured into the whites and whisked further for 10-15 minutes until volumous, white and glossy.

cooling sugar syrup waiting to be incorporated into frothing egg whites

Lastly, meringue was piped onto the cream and then put under a hot grill for about 4 minutes.

from the grill - a tad burnt, though!

mouth-wateringly delicious



I couldn't wait. See how the filling dripped onto the paper above? The passionfruit cream is meant to be like set like a mousse. Unfortunately the filling had softened after being under the hot grill. I refrigerated them until set again, exept for one. I couldn't wait to try it and hence, the drip. I guess if I had had a blow torch, the cream would not have softened.

Anyway, it was a mouthful of sunshine.

Note for next time: READ THE RECIPE PROPERLY

passionfruit tart with soft meringue
Bourke Street Bakery, the ultimate baking companion, Paul Allam, David McGuinness authors, Michael Joseph, Sydney, 2009