xmas week 2025 - passionfruit posset flower tarts

xmas week 2025 - passionfruit posset flower tarts

• 18 Dec 2025

Welcome to Day 4 of Xmas Week 2025. Christmas is peak passionfruit season in Australia so when I saw a photo of these sweet little passionfruit topped tarts in Nicola Lamb's cookbook, Sift, I immediately added them to my Xmas folder.

The recipe isn't particularly complicated but it does involve a number of steps. The pastry shells, passionfruit juice and white chocolate ganache can be prepared in advance. The passionfruit posset needs a few hours to set before you can decorate the tarts so remember to factor that in if you're planning to serve these for Christmas lunch. 

Don't make the rookie mistake I made and use regular cream for the posset because you'll end up with a very loosely set posset. On a warm Sydney day the posset pretty much melted in the heat as I photographed the tarts. I'd made a few extra tart shells, so I bought some double cream and I remade the passionfruit posset. The second batch of posset set up nicely in under 2 hours.

Here's the recipe for you which makes six 8cm tarts. 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. 

Passionfruit posset flower tarts 

Tart cases
45g icing sugar, sifted 
165g plain flour
15g ground almonds
pinch flaky sea salt

100g cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks

1 egg yolk 

Whipped vanilla ganache
300g thickened cream 
1½ tsp good quality vanilla bean paste
Pinch of fine salt
120g white chocolate, finely chopped

Posset
30g passionfruit juice (about 3 passionfruit)
10g lime juice
200g double cream (48% fat)
60g caster sugar
40g butter
1g flaky sea salt (about 1/4 tsp)

Plus
2-3 passionfruit, to serve

Pastry
Mix the dry ingredients together in the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and pulse a few times to break up the butter into pea sized pieces. Add the egg folk and mix until a dough forms around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and knead lightly a few times to bring the dough together. Wrap in plastic then refrigerate the pastry for 1 hour.

Roll out the soft pastry between two sheets of baking paper to a 4mm thickness. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes until firm. 

Have your six 8cm tart tins handy. Trim the pastry so it is larger than the tart tin you are lining. For small tart cases, you may want to use a circular pastry cutter. 

Remove the paper and drape the pastry into the tart tin, gently pressing it into the edges and base. Place the lined tart tins into the freezer until the pastry is firm, around 30 minutes, or in the fridge for an hour.

To blind bake
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional/170°C fan. Place foil dull side down in your chilled and lined tarts. Fill with weights - baking beans, sugar or raw rice work well. Place the tart shells onto a baking sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes on the centre rack until dry, then remove the weights and bake for another 5-10 minutes until golden. Take the tart shells from the oven and place on a cooling rack

The baked tart cases can be kept in an airtight container for 3 days. Refresh in a 180°C conventional/160°C fan oven for 5-10 minutes before using.

Vanilla ganache

Heat the cream with the vanilla and salt until simmering. Pour this over the white chocolate and whisk until smooth. Pour into a container and leave to chill completely.

To juice the passionfruit for the posset, spoon out the flesh, discard the seeds and place into a blender. Blitz until liquefied, then pass through a fine sieve to remove any seeds.

Passionfruit posset

Juice the passionfruit by spooning out the flesh, then placing the pulp into the bowl of a small food processor. Blitz until liquefied, then pass through a fine sieve to remove any seeds. Mix the passionfruit and lime juices  together and set aside. 

Heat the cream and sugar together, then continue to simmer for 3 minutes to ensure the sugar is fully dissolved. Turn off the heat, then whisk in the juice, followed by the butter and salt. Pour this mixture into the tart cases, about 50g per case, and put into the fridge to chill completely, around 2 hours.

To finish

Whip the ganache until soft peaks form, being careful not to over-whip. This can take less than a minute in a stand mixer on a medium speed. Either spoon blobs on top of each tart or transfer into a piping bag and cut a large 1.5cm hole or fit with a round tip. Pipe blobs around the edge of the tart cases. Add a spoonful of passionfruit pulp into the middle of each.

These tarts are best enjoyed on the day they are made but can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days, though the tart cases will soften.

Yes they are a bit fiddly to make but Christmas comes but once a year. Not only are the passionfruit posset flower tarts pretty to look at, they taste just as good as they look.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Xmas week 2025.

Bye for now,

Jillian