Durian Bars

I've been dreaming of durians lately... not to eat the fruits as it is, but how to incorporate durians into baking. I thought of baking durian cupcakes, thus I've been looking for the perfect cupcakes recipe from my piles of cookbooks.

I found a lemon bars recipe instead. It's from "The Ultimate Cookies Book", a book that I've bought during a sale at Borders and I have completely forgotten about it, as it was lying somewhere on my bookshelf. I thought it'll be a good idea to substitute the lemon in the recipe with durian and that's how these durian bars came out to be.

This was a crisp cookie base covered with chewy durian topping. Unfortunately, the aroma (or pungent smell to some people) of durian was not very strong. But I like the crispy cookie base, and now I am starting to have ideas on making some desserts with crispy cookie base.. hmm, how about serving the cookie with ice-cream and fresh fruits... ?

Durian Bar Recipe

Ingredients:

Cookie base
150g plain flour
90g butter
50g icing sugar, sifted

Topping
2 eggs
175g caster sugar
1 medium size durian, peel off the flesh
1/2 tsp baking soda Icing sugar, for dusting

Method:
1) Pre-heat the oven to 180 ºC. Line the base of a 20cm cake tin with baking parchment and lightly grease the sides of the tin.
2) Process all ingredients for cake base in a food processor until the mixture comes together as a firm dough. Press evenly into the base of the tin.
3) Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool in the tin.


4) To make the topping, whisk the eggs until frothy. Add the caster sugar, a little at a time, whisking well at each addition.
5) Whisk in the durian flesh, baking soda and flour. Pour over the cookie base.


6) Bake for 20-25 minutes, until set and golden.
7) Cut into bars. Serve.