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.