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