It feels like a while since I last posted and I cannot wait to try some of the things that Patty and Sam have posted. In fact, I have all the stuff to make the “cheesecake.” I’m super excited about that!
These strawberry tarts featured on Playful and Hungry were so easy to make! I did everything in my food processor, but I’m sure it would be just as easy, and perhaps creamier if they were done in the blender (we love our Vitamix here!). Mine did not come out beautiful, but they were delicious! Maybe I’ll have prettier ones later…
Completed strawberry tarts
The dough for the crust is definitely banana-y. It’s delicious and moist! So yummy. One thing I found is that I think I actually make more dough than I needed. I probably should have frozen some.
Raw Banana Crust:
about 1 cup “ground” almonds
1 cup oat flour
about 1 banana
I “ground” my almonds by using raw almonds and food processing them until they were fairly finely chopped. This took longer than most things tend to in the food processor for me. I then added the flour and processed more. I had a couple of over-ripe bananas that I used. I used half of one and half of the other, mostly because one of them dropped in the sink and it was too mushy to pick up and rinse off (my sink was not super clean at that moment)…they were SERIOUSLY over-ripe! I can’t believe I let them go so long…whoops!
“Crust” in the Muffin Tins
Creamy Strawberry Filling:
10 medium strawberries (mine were a little larger, I think)
6 tablespoons coconut butter
6 dates
1 tsp vanilla extract (approx.)
1 tbsp lemon juice
Put all the ingredients in the food processor and process away until smooth and creamy!
The recipe calls for psyllium. I was actually just too lazy to try to find this in the grocery store. It took me an embarrassingly long time to find the dates, so I didn’t really feel like looking too hard for anything else. I don’t know exactly what it would do, but mine came out totally fine without it.
This was my first time working with coconut butter. What I noticed is the top inch or two was completely coconut oil and then the meat-y part of the coconut was further down. I would recommend mixing this up with a knife somewhat if you can. Six tablespoons is a LOT, so I figure mine was fairly mixed up by the time I was done, so I think it worked out in the end. Note: these do not taste like coconut in the end.
The recipe calls for 5-8 dates. I will definitely use 5 next time. I cannot even imagine how sweet it would be using 8!
Creamy Strawberry Filling
I also have a confession. I never measure anything unless I’m baking… Seriously, my measuring spoons are nearly wasted on me. I mean, when you need to measure, you need to measure, but that almost never happens! My “teaspoon” of vanilla was totally approximate. I DID measure the lemon juice because I felt I needed to measure the coconut butter. Also, I needed something to scoop the coconut butter out of the jar with…so might as well measure. The good news is: with things like this, that aren’t an exact chemical reaction, like baking, it’s easy to use my favorite no-measure methods!
I was a little nervous that the texture of these was too mushy and that everything would fall apart, but after refrigerating, these tarts stay together great! Next time, I will probably use a little less crust and make them in a pie tin. I made my tarts in a muffin tin and it worked well, but a pie would be a little easier, I think. I did find the crust a little difficult to work with in terms of smoothing it out. I imagine if I increased the almonds and flour, that would help to make the dough easier to work with and smooth into the pan. Because mine was really mushy, I just layered the crust and the filling. It’s still delicious!
I was surprised at how quick these were to make. A very decadent dessert. I was glad I had made them the night that I did because my husband had a tough day at work and a treat always helps!
Related articles
- Strawberry lemon curd tart with gluten-free almond crust (snixykitchen.com)
- Cashew Crusted Blueberry Plum Mini Pies (canned-time.com)
- Almond Pie Crust (thekillerdiet.com)
A Foodie Family 
what is the texture like? it looks like pudding!
It’s not quite like pudding. It’s really creamy when you first make it, but after refrigeration, it becomes pretty stiff. It still tastes really creamy and decadent! The filling is definitely softer than the crust, though! Mmmm!