We’ve been busy in the BePure kitchen coming up with delicious and nutritious recipes for you to wow loved ones on Christmas Day.   

These Coconut and Vanilla Custard Cherry Tarts are free of gluten, dairy, grains and refined sugar. They are delicious, simple to make and easily adaptable to use any seasonal fruit or filling.

Recipe: Almond Date Tarts with Coconut Vanilla Custard and Cherries

Note – These tarts can be made up to three days ahead of time and stored in an airtight container. If you want a more simple dessert, you could opt for whipped cream or coconut cream as the filling instead of this coconut vanilla custard. If cherries are not available you could use any other seasonal fruit such as strawberries.

This tart recipe will make 12-15 mini tarts (as pictured), or 6-8 medium sized tarts. 

For the Tarts

Ingredients

• 140g ground almonds
• 3/4 cup desiccated coconut
• 8 large medjool dates (pitted)
• 5 tablespoons softened butter. Use coconut oil for dairy free option.
• Pinch of sea salt

Method

• Preheat oven to 160C.
• Place all base ingredients in a food processor and blitz until well combined and crumbly. The mixture should hold together well when pinched together. If a little wet, you can add 1 Tablespoon of coconut flour to the mixture.
• Lightly grease and line the base and sides of a mini muffin pan, or muffin tin depending on the size of your tarts. Press mixture down firmly and evenly with your fingers.
• Bake for 10 minutes until lightly browned, then set aside to cool completely in the fridge.

For the coconut vanilla custard

Ingredients

• 2 cups coconut milk - we used the Ayam Brand
• 1/3 cup tapioca flour + 2 Tablespoons (it will equal somewhere between ⅓ and ½ cup of flour)
• pinch of sea salt
• 1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 vanilla bean, scrape

Method

1. Bring 1½  cups of the coconut milk to a boil in a saucepan along with the scraped vanilla bean.
2. In a small bowl whisk the tapioca flour and salt with the remaining 1/2 cup coconut milk until dissolved and set aside.
3. Lower the heat and add the honey/maple syrup to the milk.
4. In a small bowl whisk the egg yolks then add some of the hot milk to the bowl to temper the eggs and pour the egg mixture into the saucepan – continue whisking to combine.
5. Add the arrowroot/milk mixture to the pan and stir constantly until it thickens and starts to simmer. Do not boil.
6. Remove from the heat, cover with baking paper or plastic wrap so it doesn’t form a skin, let cool to room temperature and refrigerate until cold or use warm immediately.

To serve

• 12-15 cherries
• Freeze dried raspberry, strawberry or blackcurrant powder for sprinkling.

Method

1. To assemble the tarts, spoon the coconut custard mixture into the tart shells. Garnish each tart with one cherry. Sprinkle all the tarts with freeze dried fruit powder.

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