When I posted my recipe for crème brûlée, I got suggestions to try white chocolate creme brulee (which I did and liked) and passion fruit creme brulee as well. Blogging is a continuing source of inspiration for my cooking, and vice versa, and fellow bloggers and followers play a vital role in that process. And so when I saw passion fruit, I knew I wanted to try that as well. I am glad that I did, because it was very nice. The passion fruit adds another layer of flavor and the tartness balances out the sweetness just a bit.
Based on recipes that I found online I used 1 Tbsp of passion fruit juice for each serving, but I think it will be even better with double that amount. It is also nice to garnish with some more passion fruit, as the seeds add a nice touch as well. When shopping for passion fruit, make sure you look for dimpled skins, as that means they are ripe. As always with creme brulee, use shallow ramekins for the best crispy sugar to cream ratio. Visit my original creme brulee recipe for more tips to make the best creme brulee.
Ingredients
For 4 servings
4 to 8 Tbsp passion fruit juice, from 4 to 10 passion fruit
500 ml (2 cups) heavy cream
6 egg yolks
1 vanilla bean
75 grams (6 Tbsp) sugar
50 grams (4 Tbsp) cane sugar
more passion fruit for garnish
Instructions
Pour 500 ml cream into a saucepan.
Cut a vanilla bean in half lengthwise and submerge it in the cream. Bring the cream almost to a boil (but do not let it come to a boil), then turn off the heat and allow to steep for about 10 minutes.
In the meantime, cut the passion fruit in halves and scoop out the seeds with a small spoon into a sieve with a bowl underneath to catch the juices.
Continue until you have emptied all of the passion fruit.
Press down with a spoon on the seeds to get the juice out…
…until there is no more juice to get. Set aside the juice and discard the seeds.
Preheat the oven to 150C/300F.
Combine 6 egg yolks with 75 grams sugar in a large bowl.
Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar…
…until the mixture is pale and creamy.
Take the vanilla beans out of the cream.
Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla beans and add back to the cream. (Dry the vanilla beans and put them in the sugar jar to make vanilla sugar.)
Whisk the seeds into the cream.
Add the cream to the egg yolk mixture…
…including all of the vanilla seeds.
Add the passion fruit juice as well.
Arrange 4 ramekins in a large oven dish, or on a cookie sheet with high edges. Pour the mixture into the ramekins.
Pour boiling water into the oven dish such that the water comes about halfway up the ramekins.
Bake at 150C/300F until the custard has set, about 40 minutes.
Take the ramekins out of the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.
Once at room temperature, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
When you are ready to serve, sprinkle the top of the custard with cane sugar, one tablespoon for each ramekin.
Make sure the sugar is spread out evenly (this can easily be achieved by tilting the ramekin).
Use a blow torch to caramelize the sugar. Keep moving to avoid burning the sugar.
If you don’t have a blow torch you could use the broiler instead, but a blow torch is better because it won’t heat up the custard as much.
There should be no visible grains of sugar left and the sugar should be brown but not black (i.e. burnt), no matter what the word brûlée actually means.
Serve garnished with passion fruit.
Wine pairing
This is great with a full-bodied dessert wine that is both sweet and tart, like a Moscatel de Setúbal. This complex fortified dessert wine is special because it is made from white muscat grapes, but like red wine is fermented with the skins. This skin contact, which lasts six months, adds a lot of flavor to the wine.
Flashback
This pasta and cauliflower gratin was inspired by blogging friend Bea; another example of a dish that I made because of blogging.
Looks amazing
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I don’t have a huge sweet tooth but your crème brûlée recipes always look so tempting!
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One of my favourite fruits with one of my favourite desserts – it’s a win win combination! Another blogging friend of mine posted an Orange Blossom Crème Brûlée yesterday which also sounded wonderful. Looks like I need a stack of egg yolks and some time in the kitchen! 😋
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Yes, I saw that one, too!
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Oh, your crème brûlée looks so nice and I love the addition of Passion fruit. Your caramel is perfect too Stefan 😉 I’ll have to try this version!
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My all time favourite crème brûlée.
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There’s a lot of work in getting the juice out of the passionfruit. I love creme brulée but, we have too many lactose intolerants around to make it too often.
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You are absolutely right when you say that blogging is a source of inspiration. The same for me, I like sharing my recipes, and every time someone suggests something interesting I should try. Passion fruit is one of my favourite, even if it’s not easy to find in Italy, I wonder why. The match between the sweet crème with the sour passion fruit seems wonderful …
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My theory is that Italy already has so much great foods of its own, that not as much is imported as elsewhere. I’ve noticed before that many foreign ingredients are hard to find in Italy. Lucky for us, Italian ingredients are becoming more and more easy to find everywhere else.
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Yes but, according to tropical fruit, we have mango, papaya , coconut, why not passion fruit, whis is my favourite? ;). Anyway, foreign restaurants (and food shops) are opening all over the world: that’s globalization.
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Nice! I agree that blogging and sharing is a source of inspiration for all of who cook. This reminds me of the recipes for Crème Catalane (French) and the supposed original Catalan version. I have a Catalan cookbook that claims they were making this before the English were. I wonder. Oh well, it is tasty.
I do think the ratio of 6 egg yolks to 500ml cream (or mixture) works very well for setting the custard. I’ve used more and less to discover a preferred ratio. However, the original recipes I have call for 4 to 500ml. A little white chocolate (a cook’s choice) seems to add a little something too. I do and I don’t, depends on my taste that day.
Another great recipe idea. I may try to adapt for sous vide sometime soon.
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Creme brulee with white chocolate is very nice indeed.
Apparently the catalan version is cooked on the stovetop instead of in the oven, but otherwise the same. I’ve had it in Catalunya in a restaurant once ages ago, and then it was flavored with aniseed. I liked it very much, but it seems that was a one off and not something traditional.
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Reblogged this on Chef Ceaser and commented:
This is really a fantastic recipe.
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