Summer-in-December Berry Tarts

The Great Canadian Baking Show But Vegan Finale!

I’m done! I did it! I made a vegan riff on the signature bake for every week of the Great Canadian Baking Show! Okay, so I skipped Tea & Coffee Week and also Celebration Week, but still! If you’ll indulge a trip down memory lane with me, over the last eight weeks I conceptualized, executed, and wrote up:

• Chocolate Hazelnut Purple Rain Love Cake

• Pear Frangipane Stuffed Cookies

• Rainbow Root Wellingtons

• Chocolate Vegan Macarons (aka Slackarons)

• A focaccia “painting” of the Toronto skyline

• And you can read about this week’s “elegant tarts” below

For some, six big bakes in eight weeks may not be a ton, but for me it was a lot as I was learning lots of the skills as I went — one of the main reasons I wanted to do this challenge. I got better at some of the technical aspects of recipe development (ie. making proper notes as I went); I finally got over my fear of piping bags; before and after Wellington week I obsessively learned about and tested more aspects of pastry than I ever knew existed; I got completely burnt out on pastry, having still not fully nailed it; and learned, slowly, imperfectly, how to balance my vision and my actual mental and physical capacity. It was good! And I’m glad to be done!

Before we get to the final bake, I wanted to once more thank my wonderful “judges,” my upstairs neighbours Sam and Shannon, who were patient with my late deliveries, and filled out my feedback form so thoughtfully each week. What wonderful women! They keep being like, “No, thank YOU! You brought us baked goods!” but I feel like squeezing such a thing into a week crammed with work and parenting and all the other pressures of life is just really, really nice and I appreciate it so much.

I also wanted to shout out my new friend in the “food newsletter space,”

Mark Thomas

, who’s wrapping up his Great British Bake Off Challenge over at

Taisty Bytes

. Sometimes during this challenge I’d get tired and think, “Why the hell am I doing this?” but reading about Mark’s joy in learning and trying new things was infectious and motivating, and I loved following along. You probably would, too!

The Great Taisty Bytes Bake Off!

The Finale!

First off, huge congrats to Elora, who took home the season eight cake stand. This woman turned it out week after week, and I loved the back story that she got hard into baking so her diabetic son could have delicious treats. That’s so nice, man! The brief for the finale’s signature bake was simply “an elegant tart with a set filling,” and Elora went the extra distance to balance a gorgeous little disc of mango mousse on top of her tart, made all the more precarious due to Ontario-soup-summer temperatures in the tent. Werk, Elora.

cbcbakingshow

A post shared by @cbcbakingshow

For my tarts I went a little more minimalist, but I must say I’m thrilled with how they turned out! You might remember that I went wild picking mulberries this past summer. I picked so many, in fact, that I still had a container-full in the freezer that I was hoping to use in this challenge. I also had some Ontario-grown seabuckthorn berries in the freezer that I’d bought at the farmer’s market and was likewise saving for a special time. I decided that bright, fresh berry tarts in December would be a nice thing, kind of like Christmas-in-July in reverse?

One of the reasons I finally got my vegan pastry cream recipe out the door last week is because I knew I wanted to riff on it this week, and I thought it would be nice to have a reference point. My hope was to use the basic pastry cream concept to make fruit curds with my berries. I decided to add a little agar, too, so that the curds would really set per the “set filling” brief, and maybe even be pipeable? And it worked! A miracle! The seabuckthorn one was so nice and tart and unique. These berries kind of taste like orange mixed with passionfruit but also their own thing. The mulberry curd was sweeter and classically “berry flavoured,” which served as a nice contrast. As a nod to December, I added some mulled wine type spices to the mulberry component of the dessert (mulled mulberries sounded good!) and it was fine, but maybe not that noticeable if I’m true.

I’m really excited about this curd, and can’t wait to do more stuff with it. You could try all kinds of different fruits, and I think it could be used for cake decor, cupcake or cookie fillings, meringue pie filling, etc. etc. I’m pumped!

I had bought a set of piping tips and some silicon bags as a treat for this Bake Off challenge, having never piped anything before (okay, there were some zip-lock bag piped cookies last year, but that’s really it). Piping has always intimidated me, and I was worried I’d be bad at it as fine motor skills are not always my forte. And I admit my first few were indeed not so hot — very far off the vision I had for neat stripes, clean zigzags, and tidy spirals.

NAILED IT!

But I watched a bunch of YouTubes and practiced on parchment paper as recommended, and wound up finding it pretty relaxing actually! Those star tips, man, they do all the work for you. Just squish and there’s a beautiful flower! That’s frankly pretty chill. I admit my shell borders leave something to be desired, but it was fun to try and I’m never one to be that bothered by asymmetry and mild wonkiness.

Like just about everyone in the baking world these days, I’m obsessed with

Camilla Wynne

’s Nature’s Candy, so I decided to candy a few mulberries and seabuckthorns and roll them in sour sugar for some sparkly decor. Thank you to Camilla for answering my q’s about seabuckthorns! If you have the book and you’re wondering, you can indeed use the method for “taut-skinned berries and their ilk” for these guys! They were taking forever to air dry post-candying, but a low oven for a few hours got them in good shape. I used the Candied Fruit Lite method for the mulberries, and it worked great. Rolled in sugar with a pinch of citric acid, they taste so good! Buy Camilla’s book, man, it’s so fun. Behold the sparkly jewels amid the star-piped curd!

Summer-in-December Berry Tarts

I had intended to make eight four-inch tartlets, but honestly the crust and curd amounts only make seven comfortably. Which is a weird number of tartlets! Get into it? Or make six and fill them a bit more generously.

Ingredients:

Crust:

(based on Isa Chandra Moscowitz and Terry Hope Romero’s press-in almond crust from Vegan Pie in the Sky)

• 100 grams / 2/3 cup almond flour (100 grams)

• 145 grams / 1 cup all purpose flour

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

• 6 tablespoons canola oil

• 1 tbsp plain vegan yogurt (adds a bit of buttery flavour, optional, replace with another tbsp of milk)

• 2-3 tbsp cold, plain plant milk (I use soy, but I think any would work fine here)

Seabuckthorn curd:

• 190 grams / generous cup seabuckthorn berries, leaves and big stems removed

• 120 grams / 1/2 cup granulated sugar plus more to taste

• ¼ to ⅓ cup soy milk (depending on how much juice you end up with)

• 1 tbsp fava bean flour

• 3 tbsp coconut milk

• 2 tbsp cornstarch

• ½ tsp vanilla extract

• Pinch of fine sea salt

• ½ tsp agar powder (leave out if you want it less set)

• 1 tbsp coconut oil

Mulberry curd:

• 190 grams / generous cup mulberries (if some of the little stems are still on, it’s okay, you’ll be straining these out)

• 1 tbsp lemon juice

• 90 grams / 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp granulated sugar plus more to taste

• Optional ingredients for “mulled mulberry” flavour:

  • 2 tbsp brandy

  • 1 cinnamon stick

  • 2 cloves

  • 1 star anise

  • Small piece lemon peel 

• ¼ to ⅓ cup soy milk (depending on how much juice you end up with)

• 1 tbsp fava bean flour

• 3 tbsp coconut milk

• 2 tbsp cornstarch

• ½ tsp vanilla extract

• Pinch of fine sea salt

• ½ tsp agar powder (leave out if you want it less set)

• 1 tbsp coconut oil

Decor:

• Candied mulberries and seabuckthorn berries made using Camilla Wynne’s methods in Nature’s Candy (see above for more information), dried and rolled in sugar spiked with citric acid.

Method:

• Combine seabuckthorn berries and sugar in a small bowl. Crush the berries with your hands and/or a potato masher. Let these hang out at room temp for two hours, stirring / mashing occasionally, or in the fridge overnight.

• In a different bowl, combine mulberries, sugar, and lemon juice. Crush the berries with your hands and/or a potato masher. Add the “mulled mulberry” ingredients if desired. Let these hang out at room temp for two hours, stirring / mashing occasionally, or in the fridge overnight.

• When you’re ready to make the tarts, strain all the juice from each of the bowls of macerated berries through a cheesecloth or muslin lined colander into a fresh bowl or measuring cup. Wrap the solids in the cheese cloth and squeeze lightly to extract more juice. You can add the pulp to oatmeal, yogurt, smoothies, etc. If you used a bowl, measure how much juice you now have. I got just over 2/3 of a cup of juice from each batch of berries. Set the juice aside till you’re ready to make the curd.

• Make the crust. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flours, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Make a well in the centre and add oil, yogurt, and milk, starting with two tbsp of milk. Use your hands to gently mix together until combined and crumbly. The mixture should stick together when pressed. If it’s too dry, add more milk one tbsp at a time.

• Press evenly into your tart pans and dock all over with a fork. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. If they’re puffing up, you can dock once more during the bake time. Let cool on a rack.

• While the crusts are baking and cooling, make the curds. I did one at a time, right after each other. For each one, whisk together the coconut milk, fava bean flour, cornstarch, vanilla extract, and salt in a small bowl and let that hydrate for about 15 minutes.

• Measure out enough soy milk so that berry juice + soy milk will equal 1 cup. For example, I had about 2/3 cup berry juice so I measured out 1/3 cup soy milk for each curd.

• Pour the strained berry juice into a small pot and sprinkle the agar over top if using, then whisk it in. Heat over medium heat, stirring frequently to dissolve the agar, and bring to a simmer. Simmer two or three minutes, still stirring, then reduce the temp to medium low and add the soy milk, stirring constantly now (I was really worried my soy milk would curdle from the acid in the juice, but it didn’t. I think low heat and constant stirring helps).

• When the juice/milk mixture is hot again, pour a little of it into the fava bean mixture and whisk vigorously to blend until smooth.

• Add this mixture back into the pot and heat it all together over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. I usually alternate between a fork and a spoon at this point. The bean flour likes to clump at the bottom, so make sure you scrape the bottom with your spoon as you stir. I find a few lumps at this stage usually sort themselves out eventually, and you can always strain it at the end if you’re worried.

• After five to seven minutes of stirring and heating, the mixture should thicken a lot and will start to boil in that thrilling pudding way where huge bubbles slowly rise to the surface (see pastry cream recipe for video). Taste and add a little more sugar if you think you need it. Keep stirring.

• I like to let it go another two minutes at that stage, then remove from heat, and whisk in the coconut oil until fully emulsified. Let it cool, stirring to mitigate skin formation. When cool and thick, it’s ready to pipe, but you can also scoop it into an air tight container and reserve to pipe the next day. Just whip it a little with a fork if it’s gotten rubbery. I found the texture stayed pretty great.

• Repeat for the second berry curd. When both curds are cool and ready, prepare your piping set-up and pipe into your crusts in a way that pleases you. Or just use a spoon, I’m sure that you can make it look cool that way, too! OR try pouring the curds in when still warm and swirling around for another cool effect? I haven’t tried, but I want to!

• Decorate with candied berries if you like and serve, or chill for a while and serve later on. These held up really well in the fridge for 24 hours, and I bet would do fine beyond that. They also held up well on a two hour bus ride, part of which was very near a blasting heater.

Judges’ Notes:

Shannon: A nice balance of sweet and tart. Really delicious. I wish there was more. The curd is addictive! I shared with other non vegans and no one would have guessed it didn't contain animal products. This was a a fantastic one to end on.

Sam: It was a delight! Light and creamy filling, which tasted very nuanced—I would not have been able to place the flavours if I hadn’t known them before (and I’m still not quite sure what seabuckthorn tastes like, but I think I must like it!). The tart shell tasted very buttery and rich — my oldest child was especially fond of the shell. The tart was really beautiful. It made a very nice finale.

Guest Judge, My Dad: Ten out of ten!

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In retrospect, it was maybe foolish to do a baking challenge just before the holiday season, because the thought of making hundreds of cookies right now and engaging in the Christmas Cookie Content Industrial Complex makes me want to…cry a bit? But if you need some vegan cookie inspo, allow me to remind you I veganized all the NYT Cookie Week cookies last year (all posts are linked at the top), and hot tips abound in those ridiculous posts if I do say so myself. Plus there’s a solid chance that after a week of rest, I’ll be whipping up Eric Kim’s Lemon-Turmeric Crinklers because I simply can’t resist. I’ll report back if I do! Thanks as always for reading, you are all wonderful gems.