Recipe: Passion Fruit Meringues

A couple of years ago, I was visiting a garden nursery when I came across my first passiflora (passion fruit flower). It's one of the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen, the colours so vivid and very unique looking. For that reason, I bought a plant, took it home and planted it in my garden.

Passion fruit meringues

And just recently, we started seeing lots of flowers on our plant and finally it has began to fruit too. The species that we have bears fruits which are red/purple at maturity with yellow flesh.

My whole family, including my kids love eating passion fruit (markisa). Fresh passion fruit is high in provitamin A beta carotene, vitamin C, dietary fiber, potassium and iron.There are two ways we like to eat them - over meringues or just eaten like that. One tip is to leave them to ripen further on your kitchen counters until the skin is wrinkled all over for sweeter tasting fruits.

Flower of Passiflora edulis

Passion fruit on the vine

Just halve them and scoop out the flesh.. very fragrant and delicious not to mention nutritious too

Perfectly thin crisp exterior and soft mashmallowy centre, topped with fluffy whipping cream and passion fruit. Meringues and passion fruit really are the perfect pair... the tangy passion fruit balances the sweetness of the meringue perfectly. (see how many times I used the word perfect? It's that good)

Thanks Hubby for making these perfect meringues to go with our passion fruit. According to Hubby, meringues are so easy to make so I think they'd make the perfect Christmas dessert for easy entertaining. So Hubby, could you please make this for us during Christmas this year? ;)

And speaking of Christmas, so happy that it's finally December. Over the weekend, we put up our Christmas tree and was so lovely to see the kids so excited helping out and then gushing over their beautiful tree.

For the whole month of December, I am also co-hosting a Christmas bloghop event, so do link any Christmas recipes that you have with us. Do also check out the collection of Christmas recipes that my other blogger friends and I have made in 2013.

Passion fruit Meringues
Recipe by Baby Sumo
Preparation time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: 30-35 minutes
Makes 12

Ingredients
3 egg whites, at room temperature
150g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

To serve
6 passion fruits, halved
200ml whipping cream




1.Preheat oven to 150°C (no fan).

2. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites in a large clean bowl until soft peaks. Add half the sugar and whisk until glossy, then add the remaining sugar and beat until the meringue is very stiff. Test using your thumb and forefinger, the mixture should be very smooth without any sugar grains.


4. Drop tablespoonfuls of mixture on the baking sheet, leaving some space in between for expansion. Bake for 30-35 minutes until crisp. Turn off the oven.


5. Remove the tray from oven and gently lift each meringue off the baking tray. This is to prevent sticking and ensure easier removal later once cooled.

6. Place the tray back in the oven and let meringues cool completely inside the oven. Store in airtight container.

7. Whisk the whipping cream until soft peaks. Place a meringue on serving plate and top with a generous 1 tablespoonful whipping cream. And then, scoop the flesh out of the passion fruits and top on the cream.

Note: For more tips on meringue making, please see this post.

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I am submitting this to the "Cook & Celebrate: Christmas 2014" event which I am co-hosting with Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Diana of The Domestic Goddess Wannabe. To join, simply cook or bake any Christmas recipes for the whole month of December 2014.

Your post must be a current post i.e. posted in December 2014 - please do not link older posts.Please mention our "Cook & Celebrate: Christmas 2014" event in your post and link back to Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Diana of The Domestic Goddess Wannabe and Baby Sumo of Eat your heart out.

Happy cooking! Do check out the other bloggers recipe below:

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Kids Gardening/Crafts Project: Cress Egg Heads

School's out!

As a parent, I understand that parents will be busy finding interesting activities to fill up their children's days. A really fun and cool activity to do with your kids is making these adorable, cute cress egg heads.

Fun gardening and craft activity to do with your kids

Children will get to learn about gardening (how seeds germinate and sprout), responsibility (they must remember to water their cress every day) as well as being creative (decorating their egg heads' body). My kids were definitely very excited doing this project and watching their seeds grow. Every day after they arrive home from school, the first they do is check on their sprouts and water them. I also joined in the fun and planted my cress in a shallow plastic tray (round ice cream cover would work well).

What you will need:
♥ Egg carton
♥ Empty eggshells half
♥ Cotton wool
♥ Spray bottle
♥ Cress seeds or other small seeds such as chia, mizuna, arugula, flax.
♥ Several toilet paper roll
♥ Marker or magic colour pens

You can get mizuna, arugula or cress seeds from gardening shops (like Ace Hardware) or gardening websites and chia and flax seeds can be found in organic food shops.


What you need to do:
1. First, you will need to draw a face on the eggshell halves with the markers (broken edge should face up).

2. Stuff the egg shells with cotton wool and spray with water until the cotton wool is very wet.

3. Arrange the egg shells in the egg carton and then sprinkle on the seeds onto the cotton wool. Spray once more with water and leave in a sunny spot. Since Malaysia climate is quite hot, it is recommended to spray twice a day - it is important to keep it moist or else the sprouts will dry out and die.

4. Wait for about 4-7 days, your sprouts should have grown quite high by now.

Day 2

Day 3

5. Decorate the toilet rolls with marker pen (buttons/ties/ribbons) then balance the cress egg heads on top of the tube. You can give your egg head a haircut  whenever you are ready to harvest some for your sandwiches or salads. ;)

Have fun!


Do also check out my posts under these labels for more ideas:
Cooking with Kids
Things to do with kids




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