Lil’ bun and I decided to make mother deer a mini strawberry chocolate custard tart for Mother’s day this year because our strawberry plant has been pumping out strawberries like crazy so we wanted to use them somehow. At first when I told lil’ bun that we were going to make mother deer a tart, she got a little weary because custard tarts are one of those desserts that tend to scare people off because they sound complex but not to worry this one is super easy to put together!
One of the hardest things about custard is stirring in the egg because you need to do it in such a way that you don’t end up making scrambled eggs instead of a custard, but in my recipe you don’t need to worry about that because it’s absolutely vegan and NO EGGS ARE INVOLVED! In other words, this strawberry chocolate custard tart is the perfect recipe for tart making beginners! (:
Chocolate custard:
2 tablespoons sugar (we used coconut sugar)
1 teaspoon corn starch
1/3 cup milk of choice
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoons vanilla
- Combine the corn starch, sugar, milk, cocoa powder and salt in a medium sauce pan.
- Stir the mixture on medium heat for 3 – 5 minutes until the mixture thickens. You’ll know it’s done when you can draw a line through the custard and have it stay in place. Transfer the custard into a bowl and let it cool for 10 minutes.
- Cover the custard with plastic wrap making sure that the plastic wrap touches the top of the custard or a film will form. Then place the custard in the fridge to cool and start preparing the tart crust.
Tart dough:
1/3 cup whole wheat flour or all purpose
2 tablespoon coconut oil or butter/margarine
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar (we used coconut sugar)
3 teaspoons water
Method
- Stir the flour, coconut oil, salt and sugar in a bowl. Cut in the coconut oil with a fork until it resembles coarse crumbs.
- Stir in the water until a dough forms.
- Carefully roll the dough out into a circle and transfer it into a tart pan (we couldn’t find our so we lined a oven safe bowl with parchment paper). Pierce the bottom of the tart crust a few times to keep it from rising up in the oven.
- Bake at 350 F for 13 – 15 minutes until golden brown.
- Let the tart crust cool for 10 minutes before topping it with the chocolate custard and strawberries. Munch!
Although this recipe is for a single tart but of course, the recipe can always be doubled, tripled or quadrupled to make even more scrumptious tarts! Actually if you make enough of this recipe you can have enough to make a big tart for a larger party.
So what was the verdict? Mother deer loved the tart! She said that the crust was flaky and resembled the ones used in egg tarts. And even though she isn’t a fan of sweets, she didn’t think that the tart was overly so and really appreciated that we used the strawberries from our garden in it too! We actually ended up making a few more after because lil’ bun wanted some and well, sharing a tart wasn’t exactly an option for her sweet tooth.