This is my husbands favorite dessert, so when the tamarillos are in season we have this often.  The kids love it too.  My favorite tamarillos to use are the red ones.  They have more flavour and tartness than the Gold or Amber ones.  Tamarillos are an excellent source of carotene and vitamins B6, C and E.  They are a rich source of iron and a good source of fibre.  No reason not to do lots with this very versatile fruit.  Unless of course you live in an area where they don’t grow.  When I was a student in Dunedin my fiance lived in Kerikeri, and he used to send me down boxes of tamarillos and kiwifruit.  I thought it was christmas!  He obviously knew the way to a poor fruit-deprived students heart 🙂

The recipe is really easy,  basically a scone mixture made into pinwheels.  It is easy to make into dairy-free,  just substitute coconut oil or ghee instead of butter. And I have made it gluten-free before, by using a gluten-free flour mix. And the sauce that it makes is deeeeelicious!!!  I could go on and on and on…..

So, on with the recipe.

Heat oven to 180 deg celsius on fanbake, or 200 deg celsius on conventional bake.  Into baking dish place 1 1/2 cups boiling water and 1 cup sugar.  Place in oven to keep hot.  Prepare dough.

Dough:

1 1/2 cups flour (wheat or gluten-free)

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup milk (dairy or dairy-free eg. almond, rice etc)

90gm butter (or ghee or coconut oil)

Pinch salt.

Rub butter (or dairy-free alternatives) into flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Mix with milk (or dairy-free alternative) into a stiff dough. I usually just chuck it all into my food processor.  Roll out into an oblong aprox 1 cm thick.

1 cup tamarillo flesh – (cut tams in half, use a teaspoon to scoop out the flesh, and chop lightly into smaller pieces.)

Spread chopped tamarillos over the dough. Add some dots of butter or coconut oil to the fruit.  Roll up from the long edge into a roll, lifting as you go so as to capture the fruit in the roll.  Cut into slices about 4cm thick.  To do this easily, I get a piece of cotton thread,  slide it under the roll where you want to slice it.  Bring each end of cotton up and over the top of the roll, crossing over each other at the top and keep pulling.  This slices the roll neatly without squashing it like a knife does.

Place each slice in your dish of hot water/sugar mix.  Add any leftover fruit around the slices in the dish.

Bake for aprox 20 mins or until golden brown on the top.  Let it sit and cool for a bit so that the sauce thickens.

I often serve it with Homemade Custard and Old-fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream.

Yum, yum, yum!!!