Soft meringue with passionfruit
curd and kaffir lime salad
from Spoon

Passionfruit berry triffle
from the Botanic Gardens
Restaurant

FRUIT BOUNTY

SEASONAL PRODUCE ADDS ZING TO FESTIVE DESSERTS

Summer brings a colourful bounty of juicy, sweet fruits including berries, mangoes, pineapples, melons and passionfruit which all shine brightly in festive desserts.

The seasonal fruits are ripe and ready for home cooks whipping up a trifle or inventive restaurant chefs who take dessert to the next level.

Chef Mark Cooper of Spoon by Aramis Vineyards, in Gouger St, embraces the onset of summer with its plentiful stone fruits, lychees, kiwi fruit and cherries.

“My desserts here this season are all designed to be flavour based and refreshing so you don’t walk out the door feeling six kilograms heavier after dinner,” he says. 

One of his signature desserts is a reworking of the classic Aussie pavlova but with a modern Asian twist. Mark makes a soft meringue topped with a quenelle of passionfruit curd and served with finely diced rockmelon, honeydew melon and paw-paw with kaffir lime salad, lychee sorbet and  chargrilled pineapple. 

“Altogether it tastes like an Asian dessert but it has that link to a traditional pav,” he says.  

He is also using summer berries in a pudding with house-made mango icecream and double cream. Fruit even makes an appearance in Mark’s Christmas-inspired Partridge in a Pear Tree main course – made with roasted pigeon breast, stewed pear, crisp parmesan and mandarin caffe latte.

At the Botanic Gardens Restaurant, head chef Dennis Leslie has created a lively summer menu which bursts with seasonality. 

Dennis makes a cracker passionfruit berry trifle (see below) replacing sponge cake with panettone (Italian Christmas bread) soaked in fig syrup with layers of mascarpone cream, strawberries, berry compote, passionfruit curd topped with Italian meringue and poached figs.

Another personal favourite is Dennis’s vanilla semifreddo, a semi-frozen creamy vanilla dessert made with mixed peel soaked in brandy with figs reconstituted in red wine and Cognac with almond and cardamom tuille.

Dennis is part of a new team at the landmark Botanic Gardens restaurant which is now owned by Christopher Horner (ex-Magill Estate) and Steve Blanco (Enoteca and Blanco Catering).

Passionfruit and berry trifle (serves 4)

Recipe from Dennis Leslie at the Botanic Gardens Restaurant

1 small panettone

Passionfruit Curd

200ml passionfruit juice

100g unsalted butter

175g caster sugar

3 eggs, whisked and strained

Bring juice, butter and sugar to the boil, do not let it reduce, and stir in whisked eggs. Stir until it thickens. Do not let it boil or eggs will curdle.

Strain again to remove any lumps, cool in the fridge.

Mixed Berry Compote

150g frozen mixed berries

60g sugar

40g fresh strawberries

Defrost berries and drain off the juice, bring juice and sugar to the boil, reduce slightly and pour over berries. Once cool, add cut up strawberries.

Cream

100ml thickened cream

100g mascarpone

Whip together to a medium peak

Italian Meringue

50g egg white

100g caster sugar

Mix sugar with 70ml water and boil to bubble stage. When sugar is nearly ready, start whisking egg whites in mixer. When they get to medium peak, begin adding hot sugar slowly and when all is combined turn speed down until meringue cools.

Poached Fig

12 dried Turkish figs

400g sugar

500ml red wine

200ml port

200ml water

1 cinnamon stick

Place all the ingredients in a pot and bring to boil, then turn the heat down to simmer. 

Add the figs and cook on low for 20 minutes.  Allow to cool in their own juice.

Once all components are cool and ready, prepare glasses by lining the bottom with a slice of panettone soaked with the syrup from the figs.

Then line the glass with slices of strawberry and spoon in berry compote in the middle. Pipe a layer of passionfruit curd, then a layer of cream, then repeat once.

To top the trifle, pipe a small rosette of meringue and brown with a blow torch. To serve, finish with soaked figs.