On a recent holiday to Bali I made it my responsibility to eat as much tropical fruit as I could find and/or work out how to eat. A new discovery for me was selak, a reptilian-skinned fruit which, once peeled, resembles large garlic cloves and is deliciously crunchy and tart. I ate many mangosteen, branches of rambutan, and plenty of papaya and pineapple. Despite this tropical fruit abundance, homeward bound, somewhere above Australia, a happy thought popped into my head: ‘stonefruit is still in season at home!’. My next thought: ‘grilled peaches and passionfruit crème fraîche’.

This simple but elegant dessert is a great way to use summer stonefruit which are almost at the end of their short but sweet season. The grilled stonefruit make a perfect dessert on their own, or as I happily discovered leftover passionfruit crème fraîche is delicious for breakfast smeared on a toasted bagel with any grilled fruit sliced on top. As you know, I don’t miss a single opportunity to have dessert at breakfast time. 

Grilled stonefruit with passionfruit crème fraîche

Serves 4

4 ripe but firm peaches or nectarines or 6-8 apricots (or use a mixture of fruit)

1 tablespoon caster sugar

200g crème fraîche (I used Zany Zeus)

4 tablespoons fresh passionfruit pulp from 3-4 passionfruit or store-bought bottled passionfruit pulp  

2 tablespoons of icing sugar (skip the sugar if you’re using store-bought sweetened passionfruit pulp) 

Cut the stonefruit in half and remove the stone. Place fruit into a bowl, sprinkle with sugar and toss to coat. 

If you have a cast iron griddle pan or barbecue, the fruit can be grilled on that (make sure that it’s clean; sausage-flavoured peaches doesn’t sound great). Preheat griddle pan or barbecue until smokingly hot and put fruit halves, cut-side down, onto the hot surface. Leave for about 4 minutes before turning over and cooking for a couple more minutes until juicy and tender.  

If you don’t have a griddle pan or barbecue then set your oven to its grill setting. Place the fruit halves cut side up in an oven proof tray and grill until the tops have browned in places. Then turn the fruit over and continue grilling until some browning and bubbling juices have appeared.

Scoop the crème fraîche into a small bowl and add the passionfruit pulp and sugar (obmit the sugar if using store-bought passionfruit pulp). Once the fruit is grilled and ready, place the fruit halves onto a serving platter with the bowl of passionfruit crème fraîche for everyone to help themselves.