We came back from Honolulu last week and I discovered this lovely thing called passion fruit bars also known as lilikoi bars.

Look at this thing! 28 bars of passion fruit lilikoi yummy goodness. The recipe for these nomalicious babies are at the bottom of the post, under the cute puppy flop gif. Yes, my post today is yummy and adorable! Fruit bars and puppies – what more can anyone want?!

 

While we were in Honolulu for my aunt’s funeral, I happened to stumble upon this little thing called Lilikoi Bars. What is lilikoi? Well, it’s passion fruit, but doesn’t lilikoi sound so much more exotic and lush? I think so. From here on out, I shall call it lilikoi, but know that I mean passion fruit!

How can I describe lilikoi to you?  It’s sweet and tangy, yet also has a nice flowery smell to it. It’s really quite nice! Then when mixed with sugar and baked it becomes positively heavenly! These bars are definitely fragrant and tasty. The amount of sugar balances out the sharp tang of the pulp.

The recipe I used for the bar’s crust has been adapted and modified for my own personal use. You can add 3/4 cup of roughly crushed macadamia nuts (the roasted lightly salted kind), but I left them out because I made this batch for my husband’s office and I don’t know who has nut allergies. I’d rather be safe than sorry!

I also had a tiny bit of a hard time finding the passion fruit stuff out here in California. I thought, “It’s lilikoi season – it shouldn’t be a problem!” Famous last words…In the end, I was able to purchase the frozen pulp from a super tiny shop located in East San Jose called Kumar’s Island Market. The pulp wasn’t cheap, but it made these bars worth it!

As you can see, Passion Fruit is known as Maracuyá and Parcha. I’ve heard rumors that Whole Foods has passion fruit lilikoi purée but I never went to find out because…it’s Whole Paycheck! It’s really expensive in there and they have this way of distracting me and enticing me into buying unnecessary products I don’t need…

On that note, I should be back to blogging soon. I’ve taken a metric fuckton of pictures, but haven’t had time to sort or write about them.

However, if you’ve made it this far into the post, July is my birth month and I’m going to be having a giveaway every week, so stay tuned!

I had to throw in this puppy .gif — how can it NOT make your heart melt?

Passion Fruit Lilikoi Bars