Quick Mango Passionfruit Pudding — sensational summer flavors

Passion fruit, ahh! Passion fruit brings back happy memories of holidays spent at my father’s place in the countryside. Swinging in the warm summer breeze. Chasing butterflies dancing from flower to flower. Playing on pyramids of hay. Drenching in the monsoon rain and splashing puddles. Swimming in the pond. Enjoying fresh fruits from my grandparent’s home garden — mango, cashew fruit, guava, passion fruit, rose apple, jackfruit. And, plenty more.

I have very vague memories of enjoying this beautifully sweet and tangy, aromatic fruit during my visits there as a young girl. It's a shame that we don't get to enjoy this fruit often anymore. You see, passion fruit is a delicacy in Qatar, and it's a rare chance to come across this fruit in the local stores here. 

So when I saw a stack of boxes in a supermarket last week, I was overly delighted. There was no chance I was going to miss this gorgeous fruit just because of a heft price tag, I thought. Bonus? I was even more delighted to see my kids experience this new fruit when I made a simple, creamy, dreamy pud using passion fruit and Alphonso mangoes – a quite sensational pairing. 

I found the inspiration for this delicious pudding in one of the amazing food magazines, Good Food, and adapted it slightly to suit our taste.

I love puddings like this—gorgeous to eat, glamorous to look at, and with a recipe that can be pulled together in next to no time. What better way to end a meal in this warm weather? I loved the ease with which I could make them and my folks loved how delicious it tasted—an absolute winner, without doubt!

Every bit of this exotic pud is filled with aromatic ingredients. From the piney sweet cardamoms and juicy mangoes to the enticingly fragrant passion fruit. Though a rich dessert, it feels quite light from the fruitiness. Try it if you love yummy bites of sweetness full of beautiful fragrance and a hint of tang. We cleaned the dishes to the last bite.

Call it a weakness, or my sweet tooth, but whenever I make delicious desserts, I can’t stop myself from clicking a whole lot of pictures to prattle on about the beauty of the treat to the world. After taking scads of photos of the lovely pud, I seriously lost it. I just couldn’t figure out which ones were good enough to be published…er, lemme rephrase, if any of them was good enough to be published—duh! So I’ve cramped this space with plenty of images. Again. Pardon me.

Now for the even more difficult task: submitting photos to TasteSpotting (TS) and FoodGawker (FG). Oh heck, I can’t for the life of me decide on just a single photograph from the tons of shots I have. It’s kinda ironic that the images I consider worthy of TS or FG gets declined and the ones that are just passable gets published! I’ve had more success with FG than TS lately—bummer. And sadly, I haven’t had the time or patience to try my luck with a different photo. I admit I’m a newbie with such food sites but even with my nada experience, I realize that any photo should fit into the square display window of these sites. And since original photos are never square and I personally don't shoot with a square crop in mind, fitting a portrait or landscape shot nicely into a 250×250 pixel square frame is, at least to me, a great challenge. Especially if it's a tight shot. To cut the crap, since I consider TS or FS as my yardstick for visually attractive pictures, and with an aim to be a better food photographer, I have eons to learn. I know.

Before I go to the recipe, let me quickly share with you another exciting new for Plateful. Have you heard of Season with Spice? Season with Spices is one of those delicious food sites featuring a mouthwatering gallery of food photos and recipes submitted by various incredible food bloggers from across the globe. I came upon this lovely website quite recently and I was instantly attracted by its unique concept of publishing photos of recipes solely featuring spices. The vibrant color and subtle fragrance of spice shines from every page of the site bringing into your kitchen not only an inspiring collection of indulgent recipes but also lots of information on spices. So when the lovely creators of this pioneer project, Reese and Mark, asked me if I’d like to be a featured blogger on the New Spice Route, I was pretty excited. As you may notice, Plateful offers a predominant collection of authentic Kerala dishes among other recipes, and as such will be representing the cuisine of Kerala, India, on the spice map.

If you enjoy the taste and aroma of dishes seasoned with spices, or use spices for flavoring your food, then, this site is yours. Dash over to Season with Spice to discover new dishes with spicy ingredients, or share your own recipes.

Many thanks to Reese and Mark, for giving me this opportunity.

Quick mango passionfruit pudding

(heavily adapted from Good Food magazine, June 2011 edition)

Ingredients
Serves 4

2 small ripe mangoe (I used Alphonso), peeled, pitted and coarsely chopped

2 tablespoon thick cream (double cream)

6 scoop vanilla ice cream (I used London Diary), plus a bit more to serve, if you like

2 teaspoon sugar, or to taste (optional)

4 green cardamom pods, peeled and seeds removed

4 ripe passion fruit, halved, to serve

Directions

Using a mortar and pestle, grind the cardamom seeds to a powder; set aside.

In a food processor, blend the chopped mangoes to a puree. Tip in the ice cream, thick cream, powdered cardamom and sugar (if using) and whizz again to blend. Spoon into small bowls, cups or glasses. Arrange the bowls (or whatever you are using) on a tray and chill for 30 minutes.

To serve, scoop the seedy pulp of the passion fruit liberally over each pudding. Drizzle a bit of melted ice cream on top, if you like.

If you would rather make this a day ahead, like I did, make the puds without the topping and stash them in the fridge covered with a cling film. Top with the seeds of passion fruit close to serving.

It is no sham…..this pud rocks! Super easy to make even easier to enjoy.