Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Fanning the Flames of Passion - Crêpes Passion

It's that time again. The BakeSpace International Taste Tour is traveling through the Wonderful World of Crêpes. This was kind of serendipitous for me, since I was already on a Crêpe binge anyway. So you know the Crêpes Sucrée that I made about 2 weeks ago....? Well I stored them in the freezer until I was ready for this dish.

I was REALLY excited to make this dish. I had it all planned out, as I have been toying with this, in my head, over the last year. Then I ran into a snafu. I was unable to obtain any ripe passion fruit. Luckily, I had Passion Fruit juice, Ceres brand, in the cupboard to use as my last resort.

Sadly it's "laced" with apple and pear juices for sweetness. Granted, it's great that it's 100 percent juice and contains no high fructose corn syrup, but it played down the exotic tartness that IS passion fruit. Which kind of bummed me out. Of course, I now had to drop the sugar from my original plan and try to reduce the juice to intensify the flavor. Still too sweet... So, I added Key Lime juice to brighten the acidity a little without modifying the flavor too much. Then, I figured, since I had already adulterated my (already adulterated) passion fruit with lime juice, that a few Wild Lime leaves would add a nice perfume to the dish; especially if I tossed in a hint of Canton (Ginger Cognac).

Flames of Passion

1 recipe Crêpes Sucrée
1 1/4 cup Passion Fruit juice
2 oz unsalted butter
3 leaf lobes from Wild Lime (Makroot), fine chiffonade
1 TB Water
1 TB Key Lime juice
2 TB Canton (Ginger Liqueur)
1/4 cup Light Rum

Make crêpes and set aside. (or thaw some out)

Place 2 Lime Leaves on a cutting board and fold them over.

Cut out the stem. (you only need 3 of the lobes)

Then Chiffonade thinly.

Place 1 cup of Passion Fruit juice in a small sauce pan, and reduce too 3/4 cup.

Melt butter in a small skillet, add passion fruit reduction, lime leaves, water and key lime juice.

Bring mixture to a simmer for 3 minutes, then carefully dip each crepe in the sauce,

and fold crêpes into quarters and arrange in a chaffing dish.

After all the crêpes have been dipped, folded and arranged, carefully add rum and Canton to the sauce, stir to combine, try to not let it catch fire yet, but bring it back to a simmer.

If your chaffing dish has a heat source underneath, ignite it now. (I used another skillet on the stove)

Carefully pour the Passion sauce over the Crêpes,

let the mixture simmer again, then ignite, just like you would for Crêpe Suzette.

Let the flame die on it's own, then kill the heat source underneath the chaffing dish.

Serve while warm with a sprinkling of Passion Fruit Seeds. (I used green Passion Fruit seeds just for a visual)

Alternately, you can skip the rum/Canton step, and arrange crêpes in a shallow oven proof dish, pour sauce over crêpes and broil for 4-5 minutes before serving.

Verdict - I don't think it was passion fruity enough. The Makroot lime made for an exotic fragrance... which was nice. But it REALLY needs real passion fruit pulp. Then I think it would have been completely awesome!! (sigh) Next time.

And NOW on with the Tasty Tour...... See what all my Beeps (BakeSpace peeps) have been up to as they take you on a tour of the wonderful world of the Crêpe in all it's form.

(Sorry, this iframe plugin malfunctioned)

Thank you for joining us on out International Taste Tour of the wonderful world of crêpes.

Mangia!!
~~

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds delish...and I love the fire shot!

Unknown said...

I knew you'd come up with something totally uniquely incredible! YUM!! (btw...there's no such thing as too sweet haha)

Dajana said...

I know it's normal for you to play with fire, for me it's courage I still don't have.
Passion and flames, a very romantic setting :)) for such a tasty dish you've created.

Cookiebaker said...

You always do such a great job! These look delicious...although the fire part frightens me a little. LOL Another wonderful recipe!

Michele said...

That looks great! I never had passion fruit but if you say it's bitter I think I would like the juice combo better anyway. The flames scare me. I am definitely afraid of fire!

Bob said...

Crap, I missed another one! Man, I'm completely out of the loop. There is a certain amount of hope that my schedule will get better soon though so hopefully I'll be able to play.

The crepes look great, I've never had them flambe (flambed?) before.

DutchBakerGirl said...

I toyed with the idea of using flame, but I thought better of it. It was enough that I managed to flip one of the crepes...at least flipping won't burn down the kitchen.LOL Seriously, your crepes look awesome! But then I wouldn't expect anything less from you.