Tag Archives: biscuits

Easy Lemon & Passion fruit Melting Moments

27 Apr

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The other day I received my weekly ‘Good Food’ newsletter in my inbox and it reminded that I was yet to try anything from a previous one that featured classic biscuits! I had saved a recipe for melting moments which I was meaning to try. So whilst everyone was busy making ANZAC biscuits this long weekend, I decided to break tradition and try my hand at these Lemon & Passion fruit melting moments.

The original recipe by Neil Perry can be found here. However, I decided to tweak the recipe as I went along as I found that at some steps, I found the mixture too dry for my liking. I also added lemon to the flavouring – but this is my own personal taste so feel free to leave it out!

The first step is to cream the butter and sugar with the lemon rind. You really want the butter to pale in colour and really fluff up. Otherwise you end up with a really grainy and clumpy texture and crumb that will reflect in the final product.

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On a low speed, slowly add the dry ingredients, you should find that the butter and flour will come together to make a dough.

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When the dough starts coming off the edge of the bowl cleanly, you can turn off the mixer and roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. Below is an image of the dough just before it came together and beat cleanly off the edge of the mixer bowl.

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On the lightly floured surface, gently knead your dough a few times and then wrap in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

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Once rested, take the dough out of the fridge and divide evenly. For small bite sized moments, divide into 36. For a nice medium sized (not those overly large cafe sized ones that I find too sweet), divide into 24. I found that rolling it out into a long sausage like shape made it easier to divide the dough into even amounts.

Roll into a ball and then flatten the ball in your hand and place on lined baking trays. Use a fork to imprint the top of each moment and also to flatten the bottom of the moment.

Bake for 12 to 16 minutes depending on your oven – I have an electric fan forced oven that bakes hotter in the top so I baked my top tray for 12 minutes and the second tray for 13 minutes.

Let them cool on a wire rack.

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While the biscuits are cooling, you can get started on your lemon/passion fruit butter! This is so easy and so delicious!

Add your butter and icing sugar together in a mixing bowl (again, I tweaked the recipe and used more butter for a smoother consistency). At this stage, if you wanted to add some fresh lemon juice then squeeze a good 20 to 30ml into the bowl. Cream the butter and icing sugar together until the butter pales – this time though, the butter may come together and look more ‘doughy’ then creamy – normally, if you were making this, the ratio of dry to wet ingredients is too high. But as we will be adding more ‘wet’ to the mixture, this ‘doughy’ consistency is fine. Once your butter pales and comes cleanly from the bowl as shown below, you can add the passion fruit pulp.

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As soon as you increase the ratio of dry to wet ingredients you’ll start to see the butter change texture and ‘fluff’ up.

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Put the contents of your lemon/passion fruit butter into a piping bag or a zip lock bag with a hole cut in the corner ready for piping!

To make the melting moments look their best, I made sure to pair each biscuit to one of similar size and shape. Pipe a good dollop of of the butter into the centre of the biscuit – don’t worry about piping to the edge, once you push the other biscuit on top, you’ll find the pressure will even out the butter and push it to the edge for you.

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And voila!! There you have it, easy lemon and passion fruit melting moments!! Full ingredient list and recipe below with my ‘tweaks’ included. If you give it a go, please let me know how you get along!!

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Melting Moments with Passion fruit butter by Neil Perry – Recipe below includes my ‘tweaks’ and method tips in brackets

Original recipe can be found here.

Ingredients

150g soft butter, diced (I used 200g as my first attempt at these were too dry)
75g caster sugar
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
200g plain flour
50g rice flour
icing sugar, to dust
Passionfruit butter
30g butter, softened (I used 50g for a smoother consistency as you can still feel the ‘grain’ of the icing sugar on your tongue otherwise)
150g icing sugar
20ml passionfruit pulp (about 1 passionfruit)
(Optional: 20 to 30ml lemon juice)
Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C.
In a mixer, beat the butter, sugar and lemon rind until light and fluffy. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the flours until combined (I continued using my paddle beater in my mixer instead here and found I had a much more smoother dough). Knead mix gently on a floured surface until smooth, and then cover in cling film and allow to rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.
 
Divide mixture into 36, roll into balls and place on a greased baking tray. Flatten the balls with the back of a fork. Bake for 12-16 minutes, or until crisp and light golden. Stand for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
(Note: dividing into 36 gave me small bite sized biscuits whilst dividing into 24 gave me a good medium size that was the perfect size for me. Also, rather than using a fork to flatten, I rolled the dough into a ball in my hand and then pressed my palms together to flatten the ball to give me a more consistent shape. I then only used the fork to ‘score’ the top of the biscuits to give that traditional mark)
 
To make filling, beat butter with a wooden spoon until pale and creamy. Add half the icing sugar and beat until well combined.
(I added the icing sugar and the butter together at the same time and instead of using a wooden spoon, let my mixer do all the work! Also, if you wanted to add lemon to your filling, add the lemon juice at the same time!)
Add the passionfruit pulp and the remaining icing sugar and beat until well combined and fluffy. (Side note again, all my icing sugar had already been added – but if you want a thicker consistency, then add more icing sugar. For a softer/thinner consistency, add more butter)
Spread passionfruit butter onto half the biscuits, using a palate knife or piping bag with a 1cm nozzle (You can also use a zip lock bag with a small hole cut into one corner). Top with remaining biscuits, and dust with icing sugar.