Rosy Rhubarb Tart
Rhubarb in the UK is the first big spring crop, but the good news is new varieties have been bred that go on into the autumn. Rhubarb makes some of the most delicious fruit desserts, one of the best parts of British cooking. It is the fruit that needs cooking but beware as it can easily turn to mush. For a plain bowl of rhubarb for breakfast, I put pieces in a frying pan with sugar syrup, boil gently for 2 minutes and then switch it off and let it cool. This way, the rhubarb both stays whole and is cooked.
My Rosy Rhubarb Tart is a hybrid, taking visual inspiration from those beautiful French tarts glistening in the windows of French patisseries. The tart also draws on other food cultures, using coconut cream and nuts to form the base on which to sit the rhubarb as the classical French base is not vegan friendly with its dairy cream and eggs.
An important add on for rhubarb for me is ginger. I like the soft taste and the texture of preserved not fresh or ground ginger in desserts, although a little ground ginger does work well.
The purpose of the coconut base is taste, but, most importantly, the coconut paste forms a barrier to stop the rhubarb juices from soaking into the pastry. This way, you don't end up with a soggy bottomed tart. After all, who wants to eat something akin to flavoured blotting paper. I recommend you don't put raw rhubarb in direct contact with the pastry.
Frozen puff pastry sheets make the pastry part of the recipe simple enough. Although I was taught to make puff pastry, I find the bought ready rolled version works well and saves so much time.
As I'm a sucker for shiny things, I do like a glaze to give the fruit bit of glamour and oomph. For red or pinkish fruit, use redcurrant jelly melted in water and brushed on, and for yellow or light coloured fruit, apricot jam minus the big bits of fruit, again melted in water. This is an optional step.
Ingredients
Serves 8 - 10
Special Equipment: Food Processor
3tbs icing sugar
2/3 balls of preserved ginger, very finely chopped/optional
1kg rhubarb
320g sheet of ready rolled vegan puff pastry
2tbs redcurrant jelly + 3tbsp water/optional
200g coconut cream
100g unsalted pistachios
50g ground or whole almonds
1/2 tsp ground cardamon
1tbs vanilla paste
Method
First prepare the bread. Mix the butter cinnamon and ginger.
Spread the slices of bread with the spicy butter and cut in half diagonally.
Put a layer of the bread, butter side up, in the bottom of a 1 litre dish. Sprinkle this layer with half of the fruit.
Place the second layer, the remaining bread, upright and push the remaining fruit between the slices. If you are using a bigger dish then one litre and there is the space, feel free to lay the bread flat, butter side up and then sprinkle on the fruit. Put to one side.
Heat the oven to 190C/170Cfan/375F.
To make the custard, heat the milk and the vanilla in a saucepan. Put the cornflour and sugar in a bowl and once the milk is warm, add enough to the bowl of cornflour and sugar to make it easy to whisk all the ingredients together.
Tip this mix back into the saucepan and continue whisking with the heat on, until the mix thickens and comes to the boil. Simmer gently for 1 minute.
With a large spoon ladle the custard over the bread until it’s used or up the dish is full. Give the bread at least 30 minutes to soften and soak up some of the custard before cooking.
Put the dish on a baking tray in the oven for 25-35 minutes or until the custard is firm and the bread is a good gold colour.
Meanwhile warm the marmalade gently in a small pan, take the dish from the oven and brush a thin layer all over the top of the bread.
Allow it cool and firm up and then serve.
