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Feijoa Tarts June 19, 2008 Feijoas are one of my favourite fruit and, fortunately for me, no one else in the family is very interested. I suspect this is because there were plenty of feijoas around when I was growing up in Auckland. Family friends had a great little orchard over the back of the air force base where I lived and I generally returned from a bike ride over there with a bag of fruit - guavas, feijoas, tamarillos, passionfruit. The price of feijoas seems to have escalated in recent times, though I suppose there are plenty of Aucklanders who still let the fruit from their backyard tree rot on the ground. I understand feijoas could be an acquired taste. The fruit is slightly astringent. It can be a little gritty in texture. But I just love the aromatic flavour. While mostly I enjoy them raw, I think they take on a whole new character when cooked, and today’s recipe is a very simple one for a quick dessert. Use a good buttery bought puff pastry for this dish - the pre-rolled variety is very handy to have in the freezer.
Feijoa Tarts 2 sheets pre-rolled puff pastry Pre-heat the oven to 220C. Place the butter, almond meal, castor sugar and egg yolk in a small kitchen blender and process until smooth and well combined. Peel the feijoas and slice into rings. Cut 8 12cm circles of pastry and, with a sharp-tipped knife, cut a circle about 1.5 cm in from the edge, being careful not to cut right through the pastry. Place the circles on an oven tray. Spread some of the almond mix onto each pastry round, keeping within the inner marked circle. Cover with overlapping feijoas rounds. Wash the exposed pastry around each edge with egg white. Sprinkle each pastry with a little castor sugar and bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm, dusted with icing sugar. If desired, accompany with a scoop of ice cream or some crème fraiche. 
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