During one of our pandemic wanders as far as half a mile to the local greengrocer, we discovered one of the most intriguing fruits that we have ever tried. At first sight, this small fruit resembled a miniature of avocado with an intense floral aroma that pervaded our FFP3s. Feijoa, as that is called, originates in South America but nowadays it can be found also in New Zealand and Northern hemisphere. They are very juicy, pale inside with a little gritty texture like pear. The skin of feijoas is edible but not so tasty. What about the most important thing – the flavour? Well, it is actually complicated. We read many articles describing the flavour as a pineapple-like taste combined with strawberry and guava. But for us, feijoa reminds more of ripe pears, honey, jasmine and elderflower. Either way, we fell in love with its complex flavour and aroma.
This tart is purely inspired by our discovery of feijoa. It’s composed of a pastry cream with feijoa, a strawberry and hibiscus jam, fresh strawberries and yellow raspberries, finished with hibiscus powder. We use our favourite recipe for pâte brisée from P. Conticini that you can find in our post about rhubarb tart.
We hope you like it as much as we do.
Strawberry and feijoa tart
Course: DessertCuisine: French, ModernDifficulty: Easy10
servings1
hour40
minutesYields a tart of ⌀ 20cm and two individual tarts of ⌀ 7.5cm
Ingredients
- Pastry cream with feijoa
2 egg yolks
14g flour
44g golden caster sugar
167g whole milk
120g feijoa puree* (84g water)
1tbsp lemon juice
85g double cream
15g crème fraîche
4g agar agar
- Strawberry and hibiscus jam
350g strawberries
5g dried hibiscus
40g water
60g white caster sugar
Pinch of salt
4g agar agar
- Assembly
A handful of hibiscus, ground in a mortar into powder
About 500g fresh strawberries, cut in quarters
A handful of white raspberries
A handful of elderflower
Directions
- Pastry cream with feijoa
- In a small bowl, put the egg yolks, flour, sugar and mix together.
- Pour the milk into a medium size saucepan and bring to a boil.
- When the milk comes to a simmer, add roughly a third of the hot milk into the egg mixture while stirring constantly with a balloon whisk.
- Once you achieve a homogeneous consistency, pour in the rest of the milk.
- Then, transfer the mixture back to the saucepan, add the pureed feijoa and bring to boil at low heat stirring constantly.
- Add the agar agar and keep boiling for next 5min.
- When the mixture has thickened, take the saucepan off the heat.
- Using an immersion blender, mix the pastry cream.
- Make sure that the pastry cream is very smooth.
- Transfer the pastry cream into a bowl and cover tightly with cling film (to prevent a dry skin from forming on the exposed surface).
- Cool it down and refrigerate until needed.
- In a mixing bowl, combine crème fraîche and double cream.
- Start mixing at low speed gradually increasing the speed to maximum.
- It should take about 1-2min until the cream thickens.
- Add the whipped cream into the pastry cream and mix it well.
- Strawberry and hibiscus jam
- Cut the strawberries into 1cm cubes and place them in a pot.
- Add the sugar, salt, hibiscus and water.
- Bring it to boil and simmer on medium heat for 15-20min until the strawberries completely fall apart. Take the pot off the heat and blend until smooth.
- Add the agar agar and return on the stove.
- Bring to boil and simmer for 4min.
- Take the pot off the heat and blend the mixture again.
- Make sure it is very smooth, you don’t want any undissolved agar pieces left.
- Transfer the jam into a bowl and cover tightly with a cling film.
- Refrigerate for 2h.
- Assembly
- Fill the tart base with a thin layer of strawberry jam, about 3-4mm height (you will have some leftovers). Pour the feijoa pastry cream and refrigerate for 1h, the layer of cream will be more stable.
- Sprinkle a thin layer of ground hibiscus on the top and arrange quarters of strawberries in a circular pattern.
- Decorate with elderflower and enjoy!
Notes
- For the puree, you will need about 200g of feijoa fruits, about 4-5 depending on the size. Preferably very ripe, otherwise the fruit is not sweet enough.
- Why to use hibiscus in the jam? We found that a small amount of hibiscus gives a deeper red-pink colour to the strawberry jam. Another use of hibiscus, in this recipe, is its intense pungency that balances well the sweetness of the berries.
- Why to use hibiscus powder? It is not necessary but we think it adds another layer of flavour and harmonizes the other components of the tart (we just love acid).