Passion Fruit Tarts are rich and creamy, with a light fruity taste that whispers of warm afternoons and island vacations, but with a white chocolate finish that brings your feet back down to the ground.


Even before I’d ever tasted passion fruit, I fell in love with the name. Growing up surrounded by boring, utilitarian fruit names (are you listening, orange?), learning that there was a fruit that broke this mold was a revelation. It belongs on a soap opera! Of course I was intensely curious about its flavor. Did it taste like joy? Lust? REVENGE?

By the time I finally tasted passion fruit, my expectations were high, but fortunately they were met with equal passion. This fruit, with its distinctive floral tropical taste and sweet-sour bite, is one of my favorite flavors. I’m sure it’s much more common in other cultures, but in my experience it’s still relatively rare, making passion fruit desserts that much more interesting to me.

Passion fruit, at least in my experience, is pretty tart. If you’re eating the whole fruit, you need to let it sit and really ripen for awhile, until it wrinkles and all those starches turn to sugar and its natural sweetness comes out. Frozen fruit puree doesn’t have the benefit of sitting for a week on the kitchen counter, so it needs some outside assistance to mellow the harsh edges of the passion fruit.

I used the puree to make a white chocolate ganache. The remarkable thing about this ganache is that almost all of the liquid is fruit juice–only a little bit is cream. Of course there’s plenty of fat from the white chocolate, but the high juice ratio still makes it float a little bit lighter on the tongue, and glide down the throat a little easier than some heavier ganaches.

When you’re making these truffles, you’ll want to use good chocolate, the kind you buy in bars and chop up, the kind that you want to snack on while you’re chopping. White chocolate chips have other additives that make them resistant to melting, and they don’t taste like much of anything, so avoid them if you can.

The resulting passion fruit ganache is rich and creamy, with a light fruity taste that whispers of warm afternoons and island vacations, but with a white chocolate finish that brings your feet back down to the ground. The ganache sets somewhat loose, so you’ll want to mold these truffles, instead of hand rolling them. Dusted with a sprinkling of gold luster dust, they look–and taste–like a million bucks. The full passion fruit truffle recipe is here.

But this passion fruit party is only starting. Because the other thing I didn’t tell you about the ganache is that it makes a lot. A LOT. A-maybe-we-should-invite-the-neighbors-over-to-help-eat-all-these-truffles-lot. So if you’re like me, and the thought of molding five dozen truffles doesn’t appeal to you, you’ll try to find other ways to use your extra ganache.

Solution #1: Chocolate Passion Fruit Tarts

The ganache was poured into miniature chocolate tart shells and topped with bittersweet chocolate shavings. That is the full extent of this recipe. Ganache. Tart shell. Bliss.
The shell is barely sweetened, and the crunch of the savory cocoa shell contrasting with the sweet-tart creamy ganache is heavenly. This is one of those showstopping desserts you want to keep up your sleeve to impress company, so after you receive all of their compliments, you can say–with the blush of honesty but with a twinkle in your eye–“It really was nothing.”

Passion Fruit Tarts

4.60 from 5 votes
These Passion Fruit Tarts are rich and creamy, with a light fruity taste that whispers of warm afternoons and island vacations, but with a white chocolate finish that brings your feet back down to the ground.
Prep10 minutes
Cook12 minutes
Total22 minutes
Yields4

Ingredients

Passion Fruit Ganache

Dark Chocolate Tart Dough

Instructions 

Making the Passion Fruit Ganache

  • If you are using passion fruit puree, pass it through a mesh strainer to remove the solids from the juice, and discard the solids. Place the 2/3 cup of juice in a small saucepan with the light corn syrup and the heavy cream over medium-high heat. Bring this mixture to a boil.
  • Finely chop the white chocolate and put it in a heat-safe bowl. Once at a boil, pour the hot liquid over the white chocolate and immediately begin gently whisking to melt the white chocolate and emulsify the mixture. If you have a handheld immersion blender, use it to blend the passion fruit ganache together. Otherwise, just continue whisking until you have a silky smooth mixture with no bits of white chocolate remaining.
  • Press some cling wrap over the top of the ganache and refrigerate the bowl until the ganache has cooled, about 2 hours. Alternately, you can refrigerate it overnight, and then take the bowl out of the refrigerator the following day and let it sit at room temperature until it loosens up.

Making the Dark Chocolate Tart Dough

  • Put the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a few times to combine.
  • Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry mixture and pulse until you have butter pieces the size of oatmeal.
  • Stir the yolk with a fork and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition.
  • Process in long pulses (10 seconds each) until the dough comes together in clumps and curds.
  • Turn the dough to a lightly floured surface a knead briefly in order to incorporate the dry ingredients that might have escaped the mixing.
  • Press into tart shells and freeze before baking at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

Recipe Notes

There is a 2 hour chill time for the ganache, so plan accordingly. 

Measuring Tips

Our recipes are developed using weight measurements, and we highly recommend using a kitchen scale for baking whenever possible. However, if you prefer to use cups, volume measurements are provided as well. PLEASE NOTE: the adage “8 oz = 1 cup” is NOT true when speaking about weight, so don’t be concerned if the measurements don’t fit this formula.

Want to learn more about baking measurements and conversion?

Nutrition

Calories: 844kcal | Carbohydrates: 88g | Protein: 10g | Fat: 52g | Saturated Fat: 32g | Cholesterol: 145mg | Sodium: 219mg | Potassium: 420mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 54g | Vitamin A: 1335IU | Vitamin C: 12.6mg | Calcium: 158mg | Iron: 2.9mg
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Meet Elizabeth!

Hi, I’m Elizabeth — a trained pastry chef, cookbook author, video instructor, and your new Baking BFF! I’m going to teach you everything you need to know to be a sugar hero. ❤️

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10 Comments

  1. yes, yes, yes to all three yummy treats! Luckily I live where passionfruit is very accesible, so cannot wait to try out the tart. Thanks for the inspiration.

  2. That looks breathtaking. I may have to do some searching for ingredients, but it looks worth the effort! Looking forward to trying it!

  3. Wow, so many variations on the passionfruit!! I have to admit, the name excited me too, at first!!

  4. looks beautiful & delicious!!! how many tartlets does this recipe make? I need an excuse to buy tiny tart pans, but how many do I need to buy?

  5. I’m a bit late for this party but thought it was worth it to add a small suggestion. Your Passion Fruit Tart is amazing as is but for extra “ph” and eye appeal, try adding a layer of passion fruit curd to the bottom of the tart then topping it with a layer of passion fruit ganache. That should give you two different shades of yellow (especially if you raise your own chickens and get really bright yellow/orange yolks!)
    and and the extra texture of the curd. I live in northeast Arkansas and passion fruit grows wild here. Here in the “country” they’re called May Pops. This year I harvested 5 gallons of juice from the pasture fence line, so I’ve been looking for recipes that call for passion fruit ; )

  6. Hi. I have just made your dessert. The tart tastes divine, but my ganache feels a bit runny. I have anyway assembled the tart and put it in the fridge. It will have around 10 hours to set. You think that will help?

    1. Hey Sonali, I am sorry this is a bit late. I hope it worked out, and the texture came together. Typically ganache does tend to set well in the fridge so I hope that helped. I would love to hear how they went. If you have anymore questions or need help troubleshooting for next time feel free to send an email my way! Thanks!

  7. The tart is a great concept but lacks critical information.
    Firstly, the ganache should really have egg yolks added and made into a custard. This recipe is much too runny even when frozen.
    Secondly, like any tart crust, ice cold water should be added until it balls up correctly.