with Greg Patent, Award Winning Cookbook Author
The first time anyone tastes something new, the moment can become etched in memory. This is true, of course, if it’s a “Wow, I want more of that” event or possibly quite the opposite. My Wow Moment happened in Hawaii when I bit into a…
Quick! When you hear the word, “Hawaii,” what fruit pops into your mind instantly? Pineapple, right? For more than 100 years, pineapple was a major export of the Hawaiian Islands, but times have changed. To be sure, pineapple is still grown in the islands commercially,…
I think I fell in love with passion fruit before I even tasted it. I say this because when I did finally eat some, mingled with papaya, I felt as if I were reliving a forgotten moment from the past: the tang, the seeds, the…
It’s no secret that I love passion fruit, or to use its melodious Hawaiian name, lilikoi. When I’m in Hawaii I always buy fresh passion fruit and extract the juice myself. If I have a lot, I freeze it, pack it in my checked luggage, and bring it home to Montana. This year, a friend of mine who has lots of lilikoi growing on his property, gave me a quart of fresh juice. With this much lilikoi I had more than enough to make a cheesecake and a gorgeous tangy glaze.
These are best served cold. Store the pan of baked bars in the refrigerator and cut and dust them with powdered sugar just before serving. If you want to make lemon or lime bars, substitute either for the lilikoi juice.
The Portuguese began arriving in Kona in the 1870s from the Azores and Madeira to help develop and manage dairies, a large part of Hawaii’s ranching industry. They brought with them their talent for baking bread which eventually spread throughout the islands. Wherever Portuguese dairymen and sugar plantation workers settled, you’d see their outdoor dome-shaped stone ovens.
My last post described how Portuguese Sweet Yeast Bread dough is shaped into rolls at the Kona Historical Society’s stone oven (forno) on Hawaii’s Big Island. Baker Lewis Draxlir and his wife, Carla, are masters at the task.
I get a huge kick seeing so many Hawaiian bakers taking full advantage of their own wizardry to create outstanding desserts from their plentiful supply of local products.
What surprised me was that I could not detect a specific coconut taste in Hula Biscuits. They are very tender and have a pleasant sweetness without any addition of sugar.
I tasted these bars for the first time a few years ago on a visit to Hawaii’s Big Island. They have a buttery brown sugar shortbread cookie base packed with toasted macadamia nuts, a layer of caramel that bakes into the shortbread layer, and a generous topping of bittersweet chocolate.