Passion Fruit Crème Brûlée

In elementary school, all my friends were Asian (like chinese, vietnamese...etc.). They adopted me, the brown girl, as their honorary Asian friend, taking me for my first (but not last) time to eat things like pho, bubble tea, and so many of the best asian (especially Vietnamese) food ever! If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been as addicted to boba/ bubble tea as I am now. I would always get the classic black milk tea with pearls until one day I was adventurous and tried the passion fruit great tea! Ah! Is this what passion fruit tastes like?- or as close as possible I am going to taste fresh passion fruit??? Either way, that sweet tropical drink got me hooked. 

So the other day when my sister and I go into the kitchen, we see this huge bag of, uh, oval shaped, tiny eggplant like purple things?? We spent so long trying to guess what our dad brought home until he finally told us they were fresh passion fruit! Ohmygawd. We flipped. My sister, like me, has now become a HUGE foodie and has reached that absurd level of getting excited over food- yes friends, imagine me times two.

I have never seen fresh passion fruit in my life at any grocery stores so we were so intrigued as to where our dad found these amazing fruits- his friend's back yard! So thank you dad's friend for these beauties <3 I mean look at the crrepy-ish, alien-like, liquid gold, enticing purple bulbs of goodness- phew, that was a mouthful.

If you have never tasted fresh passion fruit, it's kind of like a cross between pineapple and apple and lemon, pure amazingness. PSA: only eat the passion fruit when the outside is SUPER wrinkley, you will get the sweetest juice then.

​I had to find a good way of putting 20 passion fruits to use so I sprinted (aka grabbed my phone) and went on Pinterest and thought that crème brûlée would be great! Give this a try and tell me how you like it :) !!

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Passion Fruit Crème Brûlée print

Ingredients:
juice from 4-5 passion fruits (appx 3/4 - 1 cup with seeds)
2 cups heavy cream
4 large egg yolks 
1/3 cup granulated white sugar (plus extra for topping)
pinch of salt 
1/2 tsp vanilla paste/ essence 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. In a medium size mixing bowl, add your egg yolks and beat with a whisk while gradually adding in your sugar until it is light, fluffy and much paler in color. Mix in your vanilla. 
3. In a large heavy bottom pot, combine heavy cream and passion fruit juice (with the seeds). Heat until mixture comes to a simmer. With a fine mesh sieve over your egg mixture, pour over a few ladles into your eggs (making sure to catch all the seeds) and mix in the hot cream into the eggs with your whisk quickly. Once everything is mixed, pass the remaining hot cream mixture through the sieve into the eggs and give it a final mix. Using a spatula, press out any remaining juice in the sieve.
4. Place 4 ramekins on a baking tray. Ladle over your egg and cream mixture​ through a sieve again (to catch any curdled eggs) and into the ramekins. 
5. After all your ramekins are filled close to the top, place in the oven. Using a kettle, pour in water into the tray until it reaches halfway up the ramekins (to create a water bath for the crème brûlée to cook in). Bake for 25-35 minutes until it is set and firm to the torch. 
6. Once out of the oven, place in the fridge to chill until serving. When ready to serve, spoon over a few teaspoons on fine white sugar over the crème brûlées and spread evenly. Using a brûlée torch, melt the sugar until it turns brown and starts to caramelize. Serve immediately and wait for that ‘crack!’ from the sugar when you dig in!

Notes:
If you do not have fresh passion fruit or availability to any passion fruit juice/ nectar products, you can replace the amount of juice with mango or peach juice/ nectar. I have not tested using the mango or peach so I can not guarantee the same results however, it should work fine. I would advise doing some research prior to making it with the mango or peach.

If you do not have a brûlée torch, you can melt the sugar under a broiler. Set your oven broiler on low and place your crème brûlées under for 3-5 minutes, watching carefully. As soon as you see the sugar to brown, remove from the oven.