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passionfruit curd pie

Guys, I got cocky.

After the triumph that was last month's epic #pieamonth pear and creme fraiche caramel pie, I thought I had it.

I'm a pie expert now! I thought to myself a few weeks ago, as I woke up early to create my next #pieamonth pie. This is going to be a breeze. It doesn't even have a lattice! I'm just going to do as I do — roll out my pie, stick it in the freezer, prep the filling — and go grab a pastry with Jessica. By the time I'm back, it'll be ready for the oven.

One chocolate ganache kouign amann and crazy delicious violet cheesecake later, I stuck the beautifully rolled and perfectly crimped frozen crust to pre-bake in the oven.


Pre-baking is often required when baking a custard or curd pie — the moisture in the filling can make the crust soggy before it has time to actually bake. The point of pre-baking it beforehand without any filling is to give the crust a head start to bake and ultimately solidify before the filling, helping the crust stay firm and prevent soggy bottomed crusts. However, you can't just bake the pie shell without weight to hold it down in the middle — as the crust bakes, pockets of steam get created within the pastry that cause it to puff up and ultimately sag around the edges. You need that weight to hold it down, which is why most pre-baking recipes instruct you to line your shell with aluminum foil or parchment paper filled with pie weights.

So I was placing my beautifully rolled, crimped, lined, and weighted pie in the oven, the parchment paper holding my pie weights gently brushed my countertop oven's heat source and burst into flame.


Have you ever seen parchment paper catch on fire? Especially the cheap kind you can buy in bulk on Amazon that's so thin and tissue papery that you often need to use two or three sheets at a time?

Well, it burns up like gangbusters.

My cat watched in judgement as I screamed, dropped the pan containing the pie, and hastily picked up the flaming inferno formerly known as my parchment paper and lobbed it into my sink. Hundreds of ceramic pie weights flew across the kitchen, making a racket as they bounced across the kitchen floor and rolled to irretrievable places underneath the oven and refrigerator.

I turned to see if my beautifully prepared shell was salvageable. NOPE. I found it lying face down on the ground in a pretty sorry state: half-melted on one side, covered in bits of ash and floor lint.

And that, my friends, is what happens when you get cocky when making pie.




Some baker's notes:

• You can use either fresh passionfruit juice (with the seeds strained out) or frozen passionfruit puree in this recipe. Fresh passionfruit was a little hard for me to source, but I would occasionally (and rather randomly) see it at major supermarkets like Whole Foods and even Safeway. You can also use passionfruit puree, which can be found in the frozen section of Latin American markets or even online (but for a much steeper price). Whatever you do though, don't use artificial/shelf-stable passionfruit juice. They put a ton of extra sweetener and artificial preservatives in there that'll just ruin your curd.
  


• I've already explained pre-baking science, so I won't repeat myself here. One word of advice though — if you have a small oven similar to mine, perhaps use a non flammable material like aluminum foil to line your pie instead. You also don't need to use fancy ceramic pie weights — you can use rice, beans, or even coins! Just make sure you use a generous amount of weight; if you don't use enough, the crust sags in the middle and destroys your beautiful crimp. Which is what happened to me the second time I made this pie. 

get the recipe »

Available link for download

passionfruit curd donuts

A few months ago, I wrote about moving down to San Francisco and feeling lost. I didn't know the best places to eat, how to shop for obscure (and not so obscure) ingredients, and where to find a quiet coffee shop to get work done. At that time, the city didn't feel like home to me. I wandered around from store to store, trying to find some passionfruit for this recipe.

Well. It took me three months, but I finally freakin' found some!*

*Actually, that's a little bit of a lie. Erlend found it for me while he was looking for weird fruit (a hobby of his) at the Mexican markets down in the Mission. But WHATEVER. Passionfruit found. Mission accomplished.


These days, I'm a little more settled in San Francisco, but there are still stumbles here and there. Interestingly enough, my life here in the big city seems quieter and less adventurous than the one in Portland. Back there, it was easy to jump in the car or hop on my bike to find something to do on a whim. But San Francisco is a place where people routinely scramble to book dinner reservations months ahead of time (as well as reserve campsites six months out, which is just bananas to me), so it's a lot harder to be spontaneous and find something new without planning in advance.

So, living in San Francisco has made me more of a homebody. There are more weekends in, more hours spent perfecting my pies, and more days dreaming up new desserts. Adventure no longer comes in the form of seeking out new restaurants and bakeries; instead, it comes from reading about ones from far away places, both foreign and familiar, and trying to recreate them at home.


These passionfruit donuts are one such example. I first read about Leonard Bakery's malasadas in one of the earlier issues of Lucky Peach a couple years ago. If you're unfamiliar with malasadas, they're basically Hawaiian donuts — they don't have a traditional hole, and are originally based on a Portuguese donut recipe. Although the first malasadas were just rolled in sugar, Leonard's also offered ones filled with different custards and curds made from coconuts, pineapples, and passionfruit. Each of Lenny's malasadas is made to order, and the article described them as light and crisp pillows that melted in your mouth.


After reading the article and knowing I wasn't going to make it to Hawaii any time soon, I went ahead and tried the malasada recipe in Lucky Peach (adapted by Momofuku Milk Bar's Christina Tosi, no less). But somewhere along the line, I tripped and ended up with malasada donut holes instead. Tasty, sure, but not quite the real thing.

This recipe, however, strikes a little closer to the mark. These donuts are not only the right size, but they do indeed taste as promised: light, crisp, and melt-in-your-mouthy. It definitely helped that, for the first time in my donut making career, I was actually able to evenly fry the donuts! Each donut came out of the fryer in the perfect shade of gold, mostly thanks to my shiny new copper core All-Clad pots (seriously, copper core cookware rocks — check out the notes below)! I immediately filled each freshly fried, still-warm donut with the tangy and creamy passionfruit curd I'd prepared beforehand. The contrast between the warm dough and the cool curd was heavenly. Before I realized it, I'd eaten three in one sitting. If that isn't a good donut, I don't know what is.


Thank you to All-Clad for sponsoring this post by providing me with the All-Clad TK pots and pans that I used to make the donuts in this post.  The great Chef Thomas Keller of French Laundry and Per Se fame actually helped design the pots himself! In particular, I loved the copper core of the stainless steel pots and pans I received. Stainless steel pots are great in the kitchen because they're durable and can take a beating, but they can also have a reputation for uneven, spotty heat distribution. All copper pots are kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum — they are extremely conductive and transfer heat evenly, but are a pain in the butt to maintain. Stainless steel pots with a copper core end up with the best of both worlds — durable and easy to clean, with the ability to heat up quickly and evenly. Check out the full All-Clad TK collection, but be sure to read the specs — only some of the pots and pans have a copper core.

As always, all the thoughts and opinions expressed just now are mine and mine alone. I just really like my sponsors! Thank you for supporting Hummingbird High and all the folks who make it possible for me to bring you guys all the baked goods.





Some baker's notes:

• You can use either fresh passionfruit juice (with the seeds strained out) or frozen passionfruit puree in this recipe. Fresh passionfruit was a little hard for me to source, but I would occasionally (and rather randomly) see it at major supermarkets like Whole Foods and even Safeway. You can also use passionfruit puree, which can be found in the frozen section of Latin American markets or even online (but for a much steeper price). Whatever you do though, don't use artificial/shelf-stable passionfruit juice. They put a ton of extra sweetener and artificial preservatives in there that'll just ruin your curd.


• Plan ahead for this one! You should make the passionfruit curd first so that it's ready to go when the donuts are fresh and warm; the curd keeps in a airtight glass jar for up to two weeks. The dough works best if you make it ahead of time and let it chill overnight in the fridge — you end up with prettier donuts that keep their shape!

get the recipe »

Available link for download