Passionfruit Curd and Crumpets

After a trickle of one or two passionfruit ripening per day from our vine, they suddenly started coming thick and fast with about a dozen coming off in one day earlier this week.  While we could happily sit on the ground below the vine and eat them as they fall without playing around with this perfection that mother nature has provided us, I wanted to make something with them.  Which provided a bit of a dilemma because I didn't want to use them all up on one ice cream, sorbet or cake.  So I decided on passionfruit curd.  My rationale being that I could then use it in all sorts of ways... however, the most popular use for it so far seems to be eating spoonfuls straight from the jar.

Before the curd entirely disappeared by spoon, I thought crumpets would make a much better vehicle for getting it into our mouths and so my friend Google brought me a lovely recipe to use from Sunday Hotpants blog.  The idea of making crumpets from scratch also ties in nicely with my 2011 goal of mastering the art of Making Things That Rise.

I'm happy to report that for the first time ever, I have had success in Making something That Rises!  This is a very exciting time for me but even more so for my husband who has had to put up with failure upon epic failure (pretending the the thing he is eating is in anyway palatable, at all) and the following storm cloud the follows me around whenever things go badly for me in the kitchen. 

Crumpets

The recipe I used is from Bill Granger and I found it on the Sunday Hotpants blog, it can be read there.

The recipe called for a 7g sachet of instant yeast, which was my first problem as the yeast sachets I have are 8g, in the end I reasoned that 1 tiny little gram probably wouldn't make that much difference and just threw the lot in... actually, I was thinking that given my inability to make things rise, a bit extra might help my cause.

I didn't have to wait too long for my first sign of success as the yeasty milk started bubbling after only a few minutes, more excitement came soon after when the dough mixture more than doubled in size in only an hour... possibly due to the extra yeast as opposed to my exceptional ability with Things That Rise...

I did have a slight moment of panic though, after adding the additional water and baking soda I expected the mixture to be the texture of a pancake batter (not really sure where this notion came from) but it was still rather thick and gloopy.  I wasn't sure whether to give it a really good beat in the mixer or just leave it as is, but my fear of killing the rising agent helped me to decide that leaving it as is was the best idea.  Whether this is correct or not I don't know but my crumpets seemed to rise well and although they were slightly stodgy they were still delicious and not at all heavy or rubbery.  They do say that practise makes perfect so perhaps next time I make them they will light and airy.

I used egg rings when cooking the batter and they were the perfect size, although I did get a bit carried away a few times and ended up with a couple of crumpets with a rather serious muffin top...

I managed to get a few good looking specimens though...

And they were a fantastic change from our usual weekend scones.  Delicious with the Passionfruit Curd but of course the golden syrup came out too.  I only just managed to get this photo before crumpet eating chaos ensued...

The Passionfruit Curd recipe I used was from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, my go-to food dictionary.  I doubled the recipe and adapted it slightly as our homegrown passionfruit are slightly smaller than the commercially grown fruit you see in the supermarket.

Passionfruit Curd

Adapted from The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander

1 c sugar

120g butter

4 eggs, well beaten

pulp of 14 passionfruit

Stir sugar and butter in a small non-reactive saucepan over a moderate heat until butter has melted and sugar has dissolved.  Reduce heat, then add egg and passionfruit pulp and stir continuously until mixture thickens.  Pour into hot sterilised jars and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

Unfortunately I didn't measure the passionfruit pulp but I think my 14 passionfruit yielded over a cup of pulp.