Passion fruit is downright weird — it’s ripe once the peel begins to wrinkle, at which point you slice it open to find it filled with yellow goo. Not the kind of texture you’d usually associate with fruit. That said, it’s a fabulous ingredient for cooking — full of intense, tangy flavor.
It also happens to be in season. I picked up a bucket full of passion fruit for less than five shekels (about $1.25) at my favorite corner greengrocer. They were going for six shekels a kilo, and these fruit are incredibly lightweight.
Passion fruit are so flavorful that I made this ice cream with three ingredients alone — passion fruit, coconut cream and sugar. It came out a beautiful buttery yellow, flecked with black passion fruit seeds, with a rich, creamy texture and a lovely flavor.
Taste the passion fruit-coconut mixture as you work — this is what your ice cream will taste like, and you can adjust the quantities of sugar/coconut/passion fruit accordingly.
If you want to extend the ice cream, you can add some water to the mix. Obviously, this makes the ice cream harder and less creamy, but it’s also a good way to make a bit more with a given amount of ingredients. Adding a cup of water won’t sacrifice much by way of texture.
Also, you can save time if you start with chilled ingredients. If you know in advance that you’re going to be making this, you can put the coconut milk into the fridge, so that the ice cream mix will be cold enough to put straight into the ice cream maker.
15 passion fruits (about 750 grams with the shells)
3 cups coconut cream
1 cup sugar
water (optional)
Slice open the passion fruits, and scoop out the filling (seeds and all). Mix with the coconut cream and sugar (and the optional water). Chill if ingredients are not at refrigerator temperature. Churn in your ice cream maker according to the instructions. Once the ice cream is frozen, put in the freezer to harden.
