Hi there!  Two questions here:

I can’t stop eating Rose’s wonderful Passionfruit curd by the spoonful so I thought the next best thing would be to make a passiongruit tart.  Should I add some gelatin - or does anyone have any other suggestions on how to add more “body” to the curd for filling a tart so that it’s slightly firmer, can slice cleanly and doesn’t succumb too quickly to warm conditions?  I don’t really want to make the Passionfruit curd cream because I want to retain the intense flavour of the curd and not have it muted by the addition of cream.

Second, what’s the impact to the curd if I reduce the amount of sugar?  I reduced the amount of sugar from The Cake Bible recipe to just 80% and still found it a little sweet.  But I don’t want to continue reducing the sugar if it’s going to adversely affect my final curd.

Thanks in advance for the advice!

I’ve found that various passion purees require different amounts of sugar; my favorite is the Albert Uster brand.  With the AUI, I use the 3.5 oz sugar for the original recipe.  I use sheet gelatine so for one original recipe of curd, I would use 2, maybe 3 sheets.  Normally I make a 10x original batch size so I can’t remember how much the original makes (is it one cup?  Then only 2 sheets would be fine).  Bloom the gelatine and add it while the curd is still warm.  You can add a little more butter to the recipe to make it firmer when chilled; I’ve also found that the curd is much firmer when made with shelled yolks than with the pasteurized ones, but I use the pasteurized ones anyway. 

In fact, I am making 500 individual 4” passion fruit tarts for next Saturday - it’s a gala dinner for a big client.  We’re plating it with a raspberry coulis,  toasted coconut and white chocolate quills.

pie and pastry bible has and EXCELLENT recipe of passion curd cream.

I once did a comparison of several dozen different recipes for lemon curd. The amount of sugar used per tablespoon of lemon juice varied a LOT. That makes me think that you can probably vary the sugar for the passionfruit curd as well. Just try a little bit less next time and see what happens!

yes, pie and pastry bible gives a reduced amount of sugar when using passionfruit curd.

Thank you, everyone!  I tried the one from The Cake Bible, and also the one from the P&PB;(which seems to have more passionfruit puree for the same amount of eggs and butter).  And Rose changed her method, stirring in some of the puree at the end instead of cooking all of it.

For me, the recipe from The Cake Bible works well with a lot less sugar added - it just tastes richer.  So, again, thank you everyone for your input.  Next, I’ll try adding a bit of gelatin once I get round to making the crust.  Right now I’m still eating off the spoon!!

I use the recipe on the Pie and Pastry Bible PPB.  For passion fruit curd, 40% of the puree is added after the cooking to keep flavors more intense;  it really makes a difference if you are using frozen unpasteurized fruit as I do harvest my own.

On PPB, read Mango Passion Tart.  I find the passion curd cream filling extraordinary, it has whipped cream and gelatin.

I always fiddle with the amount of sugar I use for my passionfruit curd because some batches of fruits are sweeter than others.

When I make tarts, I thicken the curd with a couple of tablespoons cornstarch dispersed in some water. The result is a silkier version of a typical lemon pie filling (texture not taste). Let us know your gelatine idea goes.

I’ve just licked the old bowl as I transfered my 5x recipe of Passion Curd to a new container for storage and thought how unsweet this is!  Indeed, I follow Pie and Pastry Bible PPB recipe, and it isn’t a normally sweet curd ready to be used as spreads, but instead it is less-sweet so it can be added on buttercreams which are already sweet.

Unless you like a sour or tart curd, you must add additional sugar if you plan to use this recipe directly as a spread.  I like to make the curd originally as less sweet, then whatever I need to use direct as spreads I just stir in a little sugar.

The PPB recipe to use this curd as a tart filling is called Passion Curd Cream.  It is the most delicious thing, the sweetness is well balanced, really if it would be too sweet then the passion fruit flavor is hidden.  Basically you whip Super Stabilized Whipped Cream (whipping cream with some gelatin) and then you fold in this less sweet Passion Curd.  In fact, the little tart slice on my name picture on the left of this post is a tart filled with this and topped with Biscuit Roulade.