Tropical Fruit Cruise Recipes

TROPICAL FRUIT CRUISE

Steps:

• Place puree in bowl and warm over a water bath. Bloom gelatin in cold water. When gelatin is soft, remove from water and add to puree. Stir until gelatin is melted. Whip cream with sugar and vanilla extract to soft peaks. Fold in 1/3 of cream into puree mixture, then fold in remaining cream. Scoop into molds, place cake rounds on top and freeze. Remove from molds, cake side down, and coat with toasted coconut. They will look like little sandy islands.
• Assembly for Tropical Fruit Cruise:
• Place chocolate molded cruise ship on a plate. Fill with kiwi sorbet. You can add chocolate smoke stacks on to the top of the sorbet. Place Mango Mousse Island on the plate near the ship. You can add additional decoration such as chocolate palm trees and pink chocolate flamingos, if desired.
• Cut out templates of bottom and sides of ship
• Melt and cool chocolate in a bowl. Add corn syrup and water and stir until combined. Wrap in plastic and let set.
• Roll the chocolate out flat. Place templates on top of chocolate and cut out 2 side pieces and 1 bottom piece for the ship. "Glue" together with melted chocolate. You can also cut out strips and roll to make 2 smoke stacks.
• To make simple syrup, bring sugar and water to a boil and let cool.
• Mix together puree and syrup and adjust tartness with lemon juice. Process in an ice cream machine.

TROPICAL FRUIT TART

Steps:

• Mix flour, powdered sugar, ground ginger and salt in processor. Add butter and cut in using on/off turns until mixture resembles coarse meal. Whisk 1 yolk and water in small bowl to blend. Add to processor by tablespoonful and process until moist clumps form. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 1 hour.
• Pour milk into heavy medium saucepan. Add ginger. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Bring to simmer. Remove from heat. Cover and let steep 30 minutes. Strain and return to same saucepan. Bring to simmer. Whisk 3 yolks, sugar and cornstarch in medium bowl until well blended. Gradually whisk in hot milk. Return mixture to same saucepan. Whisk over medium heat until mixture thickens and comes to boil. Boil 1 minute. Pour pastry cream into clean bowl. Press plastic onto surface and refrigerate until well chilled, about 4 hours.
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 14 inch round. Transfer to 11inch round tart pan with removable bottom. Line crust with foil, parchment or coffee filters; fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until sides of crust are set, about 15 minutes. Remove foil and beans. Bake until crust is golden, piercing with fork if bubbles form. Transfer pan to rack and cool completely.
• Combine preserves and Cognac in heavy small saucepan. Stir over low heat until preserves melt. Transfer to processor; puree until smooth. Brush half of syrup over bottom of crust. Spread pastry cream evenly over. Arrange fruit over pastry cream. Rewarm preserve mixture. Brush over fruit.

TROPICAL FRUIT KEBABS

Steps:

• Place the butter in a small skillet. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds onto the butter. Mash seeds into the butter with the back of a spoon. Add the scraped pod and melt the butter over low heat. Remove from heat and set aside to steep.
• Heat the coconut cream and heavy cream in a small saucepan over medium heat until simmering. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate until melted and smooth. Stir in the lime zest. Set aside. (The vanilla butter and chocolate sauce can be made up to 3 days ahead, refrigerated, and reheated before grilling.)
• If using wooden skewers, soak them in water for 30 minutes before grilling. Prepare an outdoor grill with a low-medium fire.
• Prepare the fruit for the skewers, cutting the fruit into 2-inch chunks. Thread the fruit onto 8 (8-inch) skewers, alternating the mango and papaya. Brush lightly with some of the vanilla butter. Grill the fruit until lightly charred but not mushy, turning as needed, about 5 minutes per side. Pool about 2 tablespoons chocolate sauce on each of 4 plates, arrange 2 skewers on each plate, and drizzle with a bit of vanilla butter.