This recipe is a straight out miracle. For years I have fantasised about making a vegan lemon tart. However, it seemed wholly impossible given that your traditional lemon tart is kind of based around butter, eggs and cream. How then, and in what universe, is it possible to create a bonafide, authentically delicious lemon tart without such things?
The answer? With large amounts of PERSEVERANCE, and in this very universe we inhabit. (*fist pumps*)
This particular recipe is a literal labour of love. It's been years in the making, and oh my have I created and tasted some HORRIFIC concoctions in my quest to bring this baby into the world. It all started out with the base, which is kinda obvious given you can't make a tart filling unless you've got something to put it in. Anyways, obvious realisations aside, creating a tasty vegan tart pastry was not an easy undertaking. My first attempt tasted like nothing. As in no flavour whatsoever - it was weird. My second attempt, and my third, fourth and fifth, were all harder than a brick, which is, how shall we say...less than ideal. Then one day I had a breakthrough! The pastry was perfect! But then I forgot the measurements I used and we went back to a few more failed rock-hard pastry shells. And, that's only the damn pastry!
Next came the lemon filling, which was, quite frankly, a hot mess for several months of recipe trials. I tried various things, including cooking the filling, not cooking the filling, adding in some random things, taking out some things, putting a bit more lemon in, regretting that because things then got very sour very quickly, creating the perfect (!!) filling before realising I'd totally forgotten to put any lemon in (#fail) - you get my drift. Things were not going well. And then just a few short weeks ago came rock bottom. I'd been in the kitchen for a while messing about with various ingredients. I had successfully created a mixture that I believed could, dare I say, possibly be 'the one'. It was a bit runny, so I put it in a container in the fridge overnight to see if it would set a bit. The next morning I enthusiastically swung open the fridge door, got myself a giant dessert spoon from the drawer and delved into that jar of lemon filling. Queue instant REGRET. It. Was. Awful. Like, gagging, please have mercy on me lords of the culinary universe, I am so sorry to all food everywhere regret. I truly do not know how, but I had succeeded in single-handedly creating the worst tart filling, and possibly kitchen creation, like, EVER. I was so scarred that I couldn't bear the thought of even attempting to rectify my travesties in the kitchen for weeks. But then, like a pesky frenemy from my past, the need to make a vegan lemon tart came over me again.
I went right back to the beginning and tried a totally new approach that seemed somewhat ludicrous at first but so long as it wasn't anything remotely like the horrific attempt of the past, I would consider it a good day in the kitchen. I decided to use coconut cream as a base, and then flavour the bejeezus out of it with lemon so I ended up with a proper lemon tart rather than a coconut-lemon tart. And you wanna know something amazing? It worked! Like, legitimately it tasted delicious. There was just one minor issue. It was as white as snow, with not a hint of yellow to it, and I dunno, it just feels kinda wrong to have a not-yellow lemon tart.
So away I went mulling things over and then I had an epiphany! I could colour the tart yellow with a pinch of turmeric. ABSOLUTE GENIUS. It worked perfectly. So perfectly that I shall gift to the world what seemed impossible - a Sunshine Yellow Vegan Lemon Tart. I definitely look some very un-tasty hits for the team, but here we are, where all is well in the world (well, mostly well) and you betcha I'm doing the happy dance in my kitchen over this recipe!
Ingredients;
The Base
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
125gm vegan butter (I used Nuttelex)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1. Preheat a fan-forced oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Take a large mixing bowl and put the 4 base ingredients in it.
3. Using clean hands, rub the vegan butter through the flour and icing sugar. It takes a bit of mixing, but eventually you should start to see things begin to form a dough-like mixture. Keep at it, mixing things through with your hands and working the butter and vanilla into the dry ingredients.
4. Eventually you should end up with a big ball of yellow dough that you can roll around in your hands without it sticking to you. If things are still sticky, add in a bit more flour.
5. Clean down a table top and sprinkle it with some flour. Take a rolling pin (I like to wrap mine in cling-film/gladwrap) to prevent sticking, otherwise more flour also works) and plonk your dough down in the middle. Gently roll it out into a large circle big enough to fit your tart tin (my tin is approx. 20cm in diameter).
6. Line you tart tin with some baking paper. (*see below for some tart tin tips)
7. Likely with some difficulty (apologies, not all things are easy in life), carefully lift the rolled out dough off the table top and transfer it into the tart tin. If the dough splits or tears, fret not, you can use leftover bits to fix things up. Alternatively you can skip the rolling part and just manually push the dough into the tin, but I like to roll it so I get a more even coverage. Make sure you have a fairly even thickness on the base and sides of the tin, then cut off any excess you have.
8. Use a fork to gently score the bottom of the tart.
9. Cover the unbaked tart with some baking paper and then put some baking weights into the tin so the dough doesn't rise in the middle. You can get fancy ball things from baking shops for this, but being the inventive student that I am, I just use some rice.
10. Bake the tart shell for approx. 15-20 minutes, or until the sides start to lightly brown. At that point, remove the baking weights and allow the tart to cook uncovered for a further 10 or so minutes.
11. Remove the tart shell from the oven when its lightly brown and the base of the tart is cooked, and not dough-ey to touch. Allow to cool before putting the filling in!
*I strongly suggest using a special tart tin with a base that you can push up from below/one that has a base that sits inside, although separate to the sides lest things get unnecessarily difficult when it comes to removal of tart from tart tin.
The Filling
1 can coconut cream (leave to sit in the fridge for a few days)
Rind of 2 lemons, and juice of just 1
3 Tbsp maple syrup
1/4 cup icing sugar
Pinch turmeric
1. Take the can of coconut cream and open it. The can should have separated into a solid cream on top and relatively clear coconut water at the bottom - you only want the thick creamy part. Scoop the cream out into a large mixing bowl and set aside.
2. Grate the rind off 2 lemons, then juice just one of them. Put the lemon innards and outards (ain't that some terminology!) into a blender along with the maple syrup. Whizz that on high speed for a couple of minutes so that the rind breaks down into the mixture.
3. Add the lemon/maple mix into your bowl with the coconut cream. Put in the icing sugar then get out your electric mixer and go to town mixing that up for a few minutes. Things should get very nice, very thick and very creamy.
4. WITHOUT significant enthusiasm, add in a pinch of turmeric. Restrain yourself from getting too eager at this step otherwise you'll end up with a neon orange, weirdly tasting tart. You shouldn't be able to taste the turmeric at all because you've used so little - it's literally just for aesthetic colouring purposes.
5. Give everything a final mix together and when you're happy with the colour, scoop the filling out into you cooled tart shell.
6. Use a spoon to smooth everything over, then cover and leave in the fridge overnight.
The following day you should have yourself a delightfully yellow, deliciously sweet and tangy lemon tart. Serve it however you like (berries make an excellent garnish) and bask in the glory that you've created something that theoretically seemed impossible. Enjoy!!
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