Tamarillo Tart

Tamarillos are the perfect fruit for this brazen tart.

By Liane Arno

MATT laughs at me when I find an exotic but half-dead seedling in a nursery bargain bin. I, through sheer will, want it to immediately bear fruit.  Matt resigns himself to once again researching the plant, finding a suitable spot in our garden, preparing the ground, mulching, watering and pruning.  Meanwhile I just keep my fingers crossed – and the seedlings usually survive and bear fruit.  Must be my wishful thinking?  Nothing to do with Matt’s endeavours.
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And that is how today I made a Tamarillo Tart.  The Tamarillo has only been with us for three years and even last year was bountiful.  This year it has excelled itself.

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Tamarillos are wonderful and versatile enough to be made into either a savoury or sweet dish.  They have been described as a mixture between the taste of a passionfruit and a tomato.  The only negative is that the skins are bitter so you need to get rid of them whatever you are making.  This recipe has a wonderful sweet and soft pastry and a creamy caramel sauce to offset the tanginess of the tamarillos.

To start
Once you have collected around a couple of dozen tamarillos, get rid of the stalks.  At the other end of the stalks cut a cross in the top and pop them into a bowl and pour over with boiling water.  You will find you can peel away the skin really easily.  Pop them aside for a tick while you make the pastry.

Pastry
Combine in a bowl:

• ¼ cup of icing sugar
• 200g plain flour
• 100g of cold butter cut into cubes
• 50 grams of cream cheese

You then need to get the mixture into a bunch of fine crumbs.  Some kitchen whizzes can blitz this fairly successfully into fine crumbs but mine just melts the butter and cream cheese in a blob near the whizzer bits.  So I just do it the old fashioned way rubbing the mix between my fingers.
When you have it all mixed up, add a tablespoon of water and one egg yolk and mix into a ball. Wrap in cling film and pop in the fridge for 30 minutes.
In the meantime preheat oven to 220°C.  Then line a 25cm flan dish with baking paper.

Caramel sauce
Pop the following into a frypan or heavy based pan:

• 75g butter
• ¼ cup of water
• 200g brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Cook for around 10 minutes stirring with a wooden spoon until it starts to get thick and caramelise. Turn off the heat and while you are waiting for the bubbles to subside put it all together.

Assembly

1. Cut each of the tamarillos in half and arrange them in the bottom of the dish with the cut half face down.  Pour the caramel over the tamarillos.
2. Roll out pastry to a circle slightly larger than the tin. Fit over the tamarillos and push the overhang into sides of the tin so that it squeezes in between the baking paper and the tamarillos.
3. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until pastry is golden. Remove from oven and leave to stand 10 minutes. Place a large plate on top of the pastry and turn the tin over quickly so the pastry is on the bottom of the plate.

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Don’t worry – you won’t drop it.  Give it a try!