Old Fashioned Desserts II - Passionfruit Delight

Back with another old favourite this week, but with a twist - this is a variation on a lovely, simple dessert, the Lemon Delight. I've always been a huge fan of passionfruit, and so I am beyond thrilled that our passionfruit vine is, in a word, THRIVING. We have been treated to an inflorescence of glorious, white and purple passionfruit flowers which last a day or so, then transform into almost perfectly spherical globes of light green fruit. Under the hot Colombo sun, they have been growing slowly but surely, changing from jade to chartreuse and finally to golden yellow, and a few days ago, we picked the first few fruit. Such a thrill! It seemed only fitting to use them to up the ante on one of my favourite desserts.

Old Fashioned Desserts I - Chocolate Meringue Gateau

I've wanted to do a series of posts on old fashioned desserts for a long time. These are the desserts of my childhood, the sweet dishes I grew up with, the puddings that firmly established my sweet tooth (or, more accurately, teeth). These are the recipes turned out by my grandmother - a consummate cook and formidable hostess, she was the first person to introduce me to really great food and to the art of cooking. I would spend hours cooking with her while her ancient Kenwood mixer churned some concoction, its sound thundering in my ears and reverberating through the kitchen. She taught me the difference between beating and folding, how to separate eggs, how to weigh out ingredients accurately using those old fashioned scales which require one to balance ingredients with weights and the importance of patience in the kitchen.

Lemon Curd Ice Cream

Another unforgivably long pause between posts on the blog. Again, no particular reason other than life, which is full to overflowing these days. Juggling work, spending quality time with the children, fitting in a daily work out, recovering from sinus problems and two chronic injuries, seeing our friends – I have so many balls in the air, I suppose it was inevitable that I would have to drop one or two. I’ve been cooking of course, but it has taken this drastic change to our way of life, brought on by a global pandemic, to allow me to slow down, to experiment, to create again in the kitchen.