passover week 2026 - strawberry and cream sponge cake

passover week 2026 - strawberry and cream sponge cake

27 Mar 2026

Just because it's Passover doesn't mean we can't enjoy a strawberry and cream sponge cake. Whilst I couldn't replicate Nadine Ingram's Little Queenie cake that I recently made, I managed to make something similar.

As I don't use raising agents during Passover I used the brown butter sponge cake recipe I developed last year from a Natalie Paull recipe. I knew I wouldn't be able to get my hands on Passover versions of the dairy products needed for the filling so I used lightly sweetened whipped cream instead.

Cardamom isn't kosher for Passover but all the other spices in the compote are, so I just removed the cardamom pods you can see here from the roasted strawberry compote. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 20-cm layer cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Passover strawberry and cream sponge cake 

To decorate

1 fresh egg white 
8 mint sprigs, picked
50g caster sugar
125g strawberries, hulled
1 tsp pink peppercorns, cracked
6 dried hibiscus petals

 
Sponge cake 
30g superfine matzo meal 
70g potato starch 
pinch salt
135g caster sugar
4 eggs
80g unsalted butter
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

 
Strawberry compote
1 tbs dried mint 
½ tsp pink peppercorns, crushed
100g caster sugar
1 lemons, zested
4 dried hibiscus petals
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
400g ripe strawberries, hulled

Filling
500g pure cream
60g caster sugar
1 tsp Passover vanilla extract

To decorate
Preheat the oven to 50°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Alternatively, if you have a dehydrator, the fruit can be dried easier and it will retain its colour better. You can also substitute whole freeze-dried strawberries, which you can slice thinly with a paring knife, but these can be costly and hard to find.

Lightly whisk the egg white, then brush the mint sprigs with a little egg white on both sides. Toss the leaves in the caster sugar, then place onto the prepared tray or dehydrator shelf. 

Slice the strawberries into 2 mm-thick slices and place them on the tray with the  mint, then sprinkle on both sides with cracked pink peppercorns. Place the tray in the oven for 4-6 hours or in the dehydrator on 60°C for 10 hours. If having the oven on for that long isn't practical for you, the mint will dry on its own overnight in the open air. The strawberries can't really be dried any other way, so you will need to omit them from the recipe.

Cake
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, grease and line two 20-cm tins with baking paper then dust with potato starch. 

Combine the matzo meal, potato starch and salt together, then sift onto a piece of greaseproof paper.

Over a pot of barely simmering water, heat the sugar and the eggs in the mixer bowl until they are hot to the touch. Pop the mixer bowl onto a stand mixer or use an electric hand whisk and whisk for 8 minutes on a medium/high speed until the egg mix is pale, fluffy and can hold a peak. While this is whisking, brown the butter. Heat the butter in a saucepan over a low heat until the butter starts to turn a toasty brown. Remove from heat, add vanilla seeds and set aside.

Gently scrape the egg mix into a wide, large-ish mixing bowl. Sift over half the Passover baking mix/salt mix and gently fold in with a whisk, turning the mix over while spinning the bowl slowly. Fold in the remaining sifted Passover baking mix until it has been fully incorporated. Slowly pour in the warm melted butter mix and fold in. Scrape the mix into the prepared tins and smooth the tops a little.

Pop the tins into the oven and bake until lightly bouncy in the centre and golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. I usually rotate the tins midway through the baking process. Immediately turn the cakes out onto a tea towel covered rack, remove the baking paper then invert. Let cool completely. 

Strawberry compote
Locate a deep baking tray in preparation for roasting the strawberries. While the sponges are cooling, combine the mint and peppercorns together in a bowl. I find the most effective way to do this is in a spice grinder, but you could also use a pestle and mortar. Add this to the sugar along with the lemon zest, hibiscus petals and the seeds from the vanilla bean. Toss the strawberries in a large bowl with the sugar mixture and spread evenly over the base of the baking tray. Add the scraped vanilla bean and roast in the oven for 20 minutes, giving the tray a little shake halfway through to distribute the syrup. Remove the strawberries from the oven and allow to cool in the tray.

Filling
Place all the ingredients into a large bowl. Use an electric hand beater and mix everything together to combine. Whip until the cream is thick and fluffy. Set to one side.

To assemble
Place one sponge onto your chosen serving platter, drizzle with some of the reserved strawberry syrup then spread half the filling evenly over the top of the sponge all the way to the edges, or use a piping bag fitted with a #11 plain nozzle. 

Press half the strawberries from the compote into the surface of the filling bearing in mind that when you put the other sponge on top, the strawberries shouldn't protrude too high and prevent the sponge from sitting flat. Spoon some of the roasting syrup over the strawberries and trickle a little over the sides. Place the second sponge on top, then spread the sponge with the remaining filling and remaining strawberries. Add the dried strawberries, hibiscus petals and mint, then finish with a few twists of cracked pink peppercorns, if you haven't dried your own strawberries.

I took the cake with me to share with friends, hence no cut slice photo, and it was a big hit. It was absolutely delicious and every-one went back for seconds including the 6 year old twinnies. Success!

That was my lost post for Passover Week 2026 and I hope you enjoyed my bakes.

See you all again next week.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2026 - torta di pere da pietro

passover week 2026 - torta di pere da pietro

26 Mar 2026

Well I do like to test myself at Passover week and this year I chose to 'renovate' an old recipe for torta di pere da pietro. The original tart is a lovely thing - a custard filled pastry shell topped with pear slices and an almond filling - but could I make it passover friendly. I probably last made this tart 20 years ago and I was up for the challenge.

I used my regular passover shortcrust pastry and followed the original pastry cream and filling recipes but used potato and/or tapioca starch instead of the original plain flour/cornflour. 

The tart is not exactly the same as the original. The pastry is a temperamental thing. It is crisp the day of baking but softens overnight, so ideally bake and serve the tart on the same day. If you must serve it the following day, keep it refrigerated so you can cut the tart without the pastry shattering into pieces. Look at that cross-section!

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 35 x 10 cm oblong tart. You will have some leftover pastry and almond filling but I think its better to have too much than too little. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Passover torta di pere da pietro 

Pastry 

125g superfine matzo meal

¼ cup (25g) almond meal

2 tbs (35g) tapioca or potato starch

3 tsp caster sugar

pinch sea salt

110g unsalted butter, cut into 1-cm pieces

1 egg yolk 

2- 4 tbs iced water

Pastry Cream

110g caster sugar

3 egg yolks

pinch sea salt flakes

¼ cup potato or tapioca starch or superfine matzo meal

1 tsp Passover vanilla extract or the seeds of ½ vanilla pod, scraped 

450mls full cream milk

Almond Filling

75g unsalted butter

55g (1/4 cup) caster sugar

85g almond meal

a pinch of salt

1 egg 

½ cup reserved pastry cream 

¼ cup potato or tapioca starch

 

To assemble

2 small ripe pears

To serve

icing sugar

Pastry

Combine the first 5 ingredients in the food processor and pulse to aerate. Add the diced butter and pulse ten times until butter is the size of peas. Whisk together the egg yolk and 2 tablespoons of ice water. Add it to the dough and pulse until it comes together. Add more ice water if needed. Knead the dough a couple of times and wrap it in plastic wrap forming a flat rectangle. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Pastry cream

In a medium size bowl, mix together the sugar, the egg yolks, vanilla and salt until well combined. Mix in the potato starch or tapioca starch to form a smooth paste. Stir  the milk into the mixture then pour through a sieve into a saucepan. Cook over a low heat until the mixture boils and thickens. It will start to look lumpy during the cooking process but just keep stirring vigorously until the lumps disappear. Scrape into a container, cover the surface of the custard with plastic wrap to prevent a skin forming on the pastry cream and set aside to cool.

Almond filling

Measure out ½ cup of the cooled pastry cream. In a small bowl, cream the butter with the sugar, the almond meal and the salt. Add the egg and beat until light. Fold in the pastry cream and the potato or tapioca starch. Taste for sweetness and adjust as needed. Set to one side.

Assembly

The pastry makes a generous amount, so you won’t need all of it. Roll out the pastry to about a 4-mm thickness between the two sheets of paper and line a lightly greased oblong tin with the pastry. The pastry is inclined to break apart so just gently press it together and patch any holes. Trim the edges then place the pastry shell in the freezer to rest for 30 minutes or until frozen. 

While the tart shell is chilling, preheat the oven to 170°C, conventional and place a baking tray on the centre rack.

Remove the tart shell from the freezer. Spread the remaining pastry cream over the pastry base to a depth of approximately 1 cm. Peel, core and slice the pears and arrange the slices over the pastry cream. Gently spoon the almond filling over the pears and smooth the top. 

Place the tart on the preheated tray and bake at 170°C, conventional for about 1 hour or until golden. Reduce temperature to 150°C and bake for another 20 minutes or until the tart is cooked through. Place on a cooling rack and let the tart cool completely in the pan before unmoulding. 

Chill and dust with icing sugar before serving.

The tart was very well received. I did miss the crisp tart pastry shell but the superfine matzo meal added an earthiness to the pastry that was not unpleasnat at all. It was still a lovely tart.

See you again tomorrow with my last bake for Passover Week 2026.

Bye for now,

Jillian 

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passover week 2026 - lemon and passionfruit angel pies

passover week 2026 - lemon and passionfruit angel pies

25 Mar 2026

I bookmark passover friendly recipes, or recipes I think I can adapt, all the time. This recipe for passionfruit angel pies was earmarked for Passover Week 2025 but I ran out of time. 

What is an angel pie you might ask. Until I found this recipe by Rodney Dunn in an old issue of Delicious MagazineActually I didn't know either. Apparently an angel pie, is a small meringue topped shortbread dolloped with creme fraiche and curd.

I needed to make some changes. First I eliminated the flour from the recipe and swapped it for some superfine matzo meal and potato starch. Instead of creme fraiche, I used double cream. Passionfruit are quite expensive at the moment so I made a batch of lemon curd and just before serving I folded through some fresh passionfruit pulp.

Here's the recipe for you which makes 6 angel pies. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced, you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Passover lemon and passionfruit angel pies
Lemon curd
1 egg, at room temperature
2 egg yolks, at room temperature
75 ml strained lemon juice 
2 tsp grated lemon rind
¼ cup (55g) caster sugar
40g chilled unsalted butter, chopped

the pulp of 1-2 passionfruit

Shortbread pastry
150g Passover baking mix (equal quantities of superfine matzo meal and potato starch) 

90g chilled unsalted butter, chopped
20g (1 tbs) caster sugar 
2 tsp grated lemon rind
1-2 tsp iced water

Meringue
65g caster sugar
30g brown sugar
65g egg whites, (from 2 eggs at room temperature)

To serve
300 mls double cream

Curd
To make the curd, lightly whisk the egg, yolks, juice and sugar in a medium non-stick saucepan (off the heat) until very well combined. Transfer pan to a medium-low heat and cook, whisking continuously, for 8-10 minutes or until mixture very thickly coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove pan from heat and add butter, piece-by-piece, whisking until smooth. Strain into a medium bowl and cover the surface directly with plastic wrap. Chill overnight or for up to 3 days.

Shortbread pastry
Place Passover baking mix, butter, sugar and a pinch of salt flakes in a large bowl. Using fingertips, rub in butter until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs (you could also process in a food processor). Add 1 tsp iced water and gently knead until the mixture just comes together. Form pastry into a flat disc, enclose in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or until chilled.

Line a large oven tray with baking paper. Remove pastry from fridge and set aside to soften slightly. On a lightly floured bench, roll dough out to a 5mm thickness. Using a 7-cm cutter, cut out rounds, re-rolling pastry as needed to create 6 rounds. Transfer to the prepared tray. Chill for 1 hour.  

Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Place the shortbreads on the centre rack and bake for 20-25 minutes or until pale golden and set. Carefully remove from the oven as the biscuits are fragile and place on a cooling rack.

Meanwhile, to make the meringue, reduce oven temperature to 130°C/110°C fan-forced. Line a large baking tray with baking paper. Mark six 6-cm rounds onto the paper and turn upside down.

Whisk both sugars and 1/4-tsp fine salt in a medium bowl until there are no lumps. Place egg whites in a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk on medium-high speed to soft peaks. Add sugar mixture, a spoonful at a time, and whisk for 3 minutes on medium-high, or until all sugar is added and mixture is smooth when rubbed between fingers. 

Using 2 large dessert spoons, drop large quenelles of mixture onto the marked rounds, then using the back of a spoon, create a depression for the curd. Bake for 1-2 hours or until the meringue can be lifted cleanly from baking paper. Turn the oven off and leave meringues in the oven to cool completely with the door ajar (overnight is best).

To serve
Just before serving, stir some passionfruit pulp through the lemon curd. Place a shortbread biscuit onto each plate, top with a dab of cream followed by a meringue then spoon in some double cream and finish with a dollop of curd. 

Wowzer, these were good. The shortbread base is meltingly tender, the meringue crisp on the outside yet soft in the centre and you can never go wrong with lemon curd and cream.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Passover Week 2026.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2026 - passover fig galette

passover week 2026 - passover fig galette

24 Mar 2026

For Passover Week I like to challenge myself and this year my challenge was to make passover puff pastry. Puff pastry needs to be made in a cold kitchen to prevent the butter layers melting and it was 30°C the day I made the pastry. The end result, whilst not really puff pastry, was crunchy and flaky and pretty good but not worthy of 6 letter folds and 6 hours of your time. 

As I don't want to share a recipe with you that isn't perfect, the pastry recipe I'm sharing today is one that I've used for the past 4 or 5 years. It's a shortcrust pastry recipe though so it will be less flaky than the one pictured here. It's adapted from an Aran Goyoaga gluten free pastry recipe and it gives consistently good results. Just to note if figs aren't in season where you live, you can use another fruit like apples, pears, plums or even blood oranges to make the galette.

Here's the recipe for you, which makes a 9 x 13 inch rectangular galette. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Passover fig galette 
Pastry 
150g superfine matzo meal
30g almond meal
2 1/2 tbs tapioca or potato starch
1 tbs caster sugar
pinch sea salt
135g unsalted butter, cut into 1-cm pieces
1 egg 
4-5 tbs iced water

Frangipane
60g unsalted butter
55g caster sugar
50g almond meal
2 tsp grated orange rind
2 tsp potato or tapioca starch
pinch sea salt 
1 egg yolk, lightly whisked

Fig Filling
10-12 figs  
55g sugar
1 tsp grated orange rind
1 egg white

Glaze
2 tbs apricot jam
1 tbs boiling water 

To serve
Whipped cream

Base
Combine the first 5 ingredients in the food processor and pulse to aerate. Add the diced butter and pulse ten times until butter is the size of peas. Whisk together the egg and 2 tbs of ice water. Add it to the dough and pulse until it comes together. Add more ice water if needed. Knead the dough a couple of times and wrap it in plastic wrap forming a flat disc and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Frangipane
Combine all of the ingredients in a small food processor and mix until well blended. Chill until needed.

Assembly
Preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional. Roll the dough into a rectangle, approximately 9 x 13 inches (5-mm thick). Transfer the dough to a baking tray lined with baking paper or a silpat. Spread the frangipane over the prepared pastry, leaving a 3-cm border, then place the tray in the fridge while you slice the figs.

Remove the pastry from the fridge. Combine the sugar and orange rind in a small bowl. Arrange the fig slices decoratively over the filling until it is completely covered. Sprinkle most of the sugar over the figs, leaving a little to sprinkle over the edge of the pastry. Gently fold the pastry over the figs, pressing as you go to hold the figs in place. It’s ok if the dough cracks a bit – simply pinch it back together. My pastry was quite soft by this stage so I returned the filled galette to the fridge for 30 minutes until the pastry was firm again.

Brush the pastry border with the beaten egg white then scatter the pastry border with the rest of the sugar. Place the galette on the bottom shelf of the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 190°C, conventional, then move the tray to the centre rack of the oven and bake for a further 20 minutes or until the galette is beautifully golden on top and the crust is crispy. Take the tray from the oven and transfer the galette to a cooling rack. 

The crust is very tender when warm, so let it cool and settle before serving. Just before serving, glaze the figs with the warmed apricot jam and serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

The galette is best served the day its baked. Any leftovers need to be stored in the fridge as the pastry softens at room temperature.

The galette received rave reviews from the neighbours and even though the pastry was made from matzo meal they were none the wiser. They thought the galette was delicious and in fact one neighbour declared the galette was one of my best ever bakes, which makes my heart glad. 

I'll keep working on the puff pastry recipe and hopefully I'll be able to share a new and improved recipe with you next year.

See you all tomorrow with another bake for Passover Week 2026.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2026 - flourless chocolate bundt cake

passover week 2026 - flourless chocolate bundt cake

23 Mar 2026

Welcome to Passover Week 2026, where I challenge myself to produce beautiful cakes and pastries using only Passover friendly ingredients. I do not use any artificial rising agents such as bicarb soda or baking powder, even though they are permitted. My Grandma Sonie would be rolling over in her grave if I did such a thing. 

Every year I try to make one dairy free recipe for Passover week and this year's recipe is a flourless chocolate bundt cake, adapted from a recipe for flourless chocolate teacakes from Sweet by Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. 

I needed to make a few adjustments to the recipe to make it both dairy free and kosher for Passover. I swapped oil for the butter in the cake and used another water ganache recipe which didn't contain either corn syrup or butter. Apparently kosher for Passover amaretto exists but I don't have any in my cupboard so I just added more coffee to the mixture.

The original recipe makes 6 small bundt cakes but I only have 4 small bundt tins so I decided to make one larger bundt cake instead and adjusted the recipe accordingly. If you'd like to make 6 small bundt cakes please refer to the linked recipe.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a small bundt cake. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Flourless chocolate bundt cake
105g vegetable oil
160g dark chocolate (70% cocoa content, roughly chopped)
130g caster sugar
1-tsp instant coffee granules (dissolved in 2 tbs of boiling hot water)
10mls amaretto/coffee 
130g almond meal
4 eggs, yolks and whites separated
½ tsp sea salt

Method
Brush the base and sides of a small bundt tin with cocoa pan release – equal quantities of butter or margarine, oil and cocoa powder - and place in the fridge until needed.

Place the oil and chocolate and in a large microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Whisk the mixture and, when melted, remove the bowl from heat. And half of the sugar, along with the dissolved coffee granules, the amaretto or coffee, almond meal and egg yolks. Stir to combine and then set aside.

Place the egg whites and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment in place. Beat on high speed for about 1 minute, until soft peaks form. Slowly add the remaining sugar and continue to beat for 3 to 4 minutes, until the mixture is light and dry. 

Spoon one dollop of the egg whites into the chocolate and fold to combine before gently folding the remainder. Set aside at room temperature for an hour to rest. 

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C conventional. Once the cake batter has rested spoon the batter into the prepared tin. Place the bundt tin on a baking sheet in the centre of the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, rotating halfway through, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out with just a few crumbs attached (not wet batter). Remove from the oven, let the cake sit for 10 minutes before inverting it onto a wire cooling rack. Set aside until completely cooled and then gently tap out the cake.

Water ganache
75g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
30ml boiling water
15 mls maple syrup
1/2 tsp Passover vanilla extract

Water ganache
Place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Pour over the boiling water. Either microwave for 20 seconds on high, or place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water for 1-2 minutes, to melt the chocolate. Gently stir together with a whisk until combined and smooth then stir in the maple syrup and vanilla. 

Set aside at room temperature for 20-30 minutes until ganache thickens to a spreadable consistency then spread ganache over the top of the cake and let it drizzle down the sides. Allow the ganache to set before serving.

As you can see, the cake came out gloriously squidgy, just what you want in a flourless chocolate cake. If you can, bake the cake the day before serving because I think cakes made with nut meal taste better as they mature.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Passover Week 2026.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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salty sweet passionfruit crisp sandwiches

salty sweet passionfruit crisp sandwiches

16 Mar 2026

When preparing last year's Christmas cookie box, I tried out 2 new recipes and both recipes failed. I couldn't use those cookies so this year I'm going to audition potential Christmas cookies in advance, hopefully avoiding the same situation. 

I thought I'd make some passionfruit crisp sandwich cookies adapted from a  recipe from Natalie Paull's book, Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice. The original recipe was for salty sweet lime crisp sandwiches but with a few passionfruit lurking in the crisper I decided to make a passionfruit version. The filling recipe is very generous and makes enough for 2 batches of cookies so the leftover filling is now in the freezer.

I cut the dough in half and placed one half back into the fridge. It's quite warm in Sydney at the moment and I found the dough softened very quickly making it almost impossible to handle. I managed to get about 10 cookies onto the tray but I needed to use a lot of bench flour in the process. Not wanting to admit defeat I pulled out a couple of sheets of baking paper and rolled out the rest of the dough between the 2 sheets of paper. This was so much easier and for the second batch of cookies, I just placed the piece of baking paper with cookies in situ onto a baking tray. I used a 6cm cutter to make the cookies because that's what I had in my kitchen and cut out a little peep hole in half the cookies, to expose the passionfruit filling.

Here's the recipe for you which makes 10-12 cookies. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Salty sweet passionfruit crisp sandwiches – makes around 12 filled sandwiches

Lime cookies

100g unsalted butter

30g good extra virgin olive oil

zest of 1 lime or lemon

200g plain flour

1/4 tsp fine sea salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 egg

80g caster sugar

cooking oil spray

Sweet salty sprinkle

30g caster sugar

1/4 tsp sea salt flakes (lightly crushed)

Passionfruit frosting filling

30g passionfruit pulp

240g icing sugar

60g unsalted butter (very soft and squidgy)

15mls olive oil

1/4 tsp sea salt flakes

Lime Cookies

Melt the butter (microwave or stovetop), then add the oil and cool completely — warm butter will make a greasy, seized dough. Add the lime zest, then set aside to cool.

Weigh the flour, salt and baking powder together into a small bowl. Stir with a whisk to combine, then set aside. In a large bowl, hand whisk the egg and sugar energetically for around 30 seconds until it just turns a shade paler yellow. No need to whip in lots of air. Whisk in the cool butter/oil/zest. Switch to a stiff plastic spatula and stir in the dry ingredients until the mixture forms a thick, mashed potato–like paste and the bowl has clean sides. Scrape into a piece of plastic wrap and chill for a minimum of 3 hours, or ideally overnight, before rolling out.

Preheat the oven to 160°C, conventional. Line a shallow baking tray with cooking oil spray and baking paper. Give the dough, still wrapped, a few firm pushes against the work surface to encourage it to yield to the rolling pin. Unwrap the dough then roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper. Roll to around 30 cm × 30 cm (12 in × 12 in) — around 4 mm thick. Stamp out as many cookies as you can with a 6 cm fluted square cutter, making sure you stamp hard to cut through any zesty bits lurking along the cut lines. Lift the cut cookies onto the baking tray, only slightly apart, as they won’t spread at all.

Collect the scraps, squeeze together lightly and roll again. Try to avoid rolling a third time, but do it if you have to. No need to chill again — these can go straight in the oven to bake for about 40–50 minutes until firmly set (when you can easily lift one up). They should look dry, not gummy, and the colour will be a honey gold hue.

Remove from the oven, make the sweet salty sprinkle by mixing the sugar and salt in a small bowl and dust over the cookie tops while they are hot. Place the trays on a wire rack to cool completely for 10–15 minutes before filling, or cool in the oven overnight. If the oven temperature is any higher or you dust the raw dough with the sprinkle pre-bake, the cookies will start to contract and dome, making them a bit funny looking, and tricky to fill without overloading the curved space with excess frosting. If they are still warm, flatten with a heavy tray on top. The edges may crack a little.

Make the passionfruit filling while the cookies are baking and cooling. Place the passionfruit into the bowl of a stand mixer and add the remaining ingredients on top. Beat with the paddle attachment on speed 4 (below medium) for 10 minutes until the frosting is fluffy, pale and ultra-creamy. if the filling is looking a bit dry then add a squeeze or 3 of lime juice. Scrape the bowl sides down twice. The frosting should hold its shape and not be melty or slack. If the frosting does slump, take the bowl and paddle off the mixer and chill for 30 minutes. Return to the mixer and keep beating until cool and fluffy.

To fill the cookies, swipe a heaped teaspoonful of frosting on one cookie, smooth out evenly with an offset spatula, then swipe the spatula against the edges of the cookie to make a sharp finish. Sandwich the top on and give it a tiny squeeze together. Run your pinky finger around the sides to neaten up any oozy bits. 

For cakeshop pro filling, scrape the frosting into a piping (icing) bag with a small sized tip (#3). Lay half the cookies, top side down, on a clean tea towel (dish towel) to prevent slipping. Pipe an outline of frosting, then fill it in. Sandwich the top cookie on.

Baked and filled the cookies will keep for up to 2 weeks, airtight and chilled. They soften a little over time.

They tasted as you would expect - a crisp biscuit that's equal part salty and sweet sandwiched together with a passionfruit cream filling. 

Next week is Passover Week where I'll be sharing 5 Passover friendly bakes with you. I must get cracking though because I have 2 more bakes to prepare and photograph by next week.

See you all again next week.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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