Mud Pie: Gluten-Free Chocolate Tart Topped With Almond Pastry Cream

Have I mentioned how much I love the Whole Foods recipe iPhone app? My most recent experiment was based on the Apricot Tart in Quinoa-Almond Crust recipe I found on there, which is also available on the website.

I had some leftover quinoa flour I needed to use up, so this seemed like a good recipe to try. Of course, I was missing a few of the key ingredients, namely evaporated cane juice and apricots, so instead I made some ganache with coconut milk and dark chocolate for the tart filling and used the pastry cream as a topping. I'm always in the mood for chocolate.

It worked out pretty well, except I used Rapadura to make the pastry cream in lieu of evaporated cane juice, and it gave the pastry cream a horrible greenish-brown mud color. So I called it a mud pie. I don't have step-by-step photos for this recipe because I made the ganache and pastry cream after dark, ad you guys already know about the lighting issues in my kitchen. Plus, how the heck am I supposed to take pictures while making pastry cream? That stuff requires both hands and due attention. Anyway, here is the recipe as I made it.

For the crust:
1 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup almond flour (I used Honeyville)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk

Place quinoa flour, almond flour, sugar, xanthan gum, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Add butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds.

 

At which point, mine looked like the photo on the left, so I processed it  a few more seconds, until it looked like the picture on the right.

  

Add egg yolk and pulse until dough holds together, without being wet or sticky. That's what the recipe says, anyway, but mine stayed a little sticky.

  

Flatten dough into a disk on a sheet of wax paper, then wrap it up and let it chill for at least an hour.

 

When well chilled, roll dough into a 12-inch round on a lightly floured surface (I used what little quinoa flour I had left for this). The dough was still a bit sticky and tricky to work with, and I had trouble with it falling apart as I tried to put it in my 9-inch loose-bottomed tart pan, so I ended up pressing it in the pan. It then needs to chill for another 30 minutes before baking at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until bottom is dry and tart shell is golden brown. The recipe says to prick the bottom with a fork, which I did, but I didn't use any pie weights. Allow crust to cool completely before adding filling.

While it's cooling, you can make the ganache and pastry cream. The ganache is easy, just melt a bag of dark chocolate chips, I used Ghirardelli 60%, add a can of coconut milk, and stir until smooth. Let it chill in the refrigerator, and it will thicken up nicely.

The pastry cream is a little more involved, but well worth the effort. I used:
1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup Rapadura
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon butter

Over medium heat, stir almond milk and 2 tablespoons of the Rapadura in a small saucepan until it starts to simmer. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, remaining Rapadura, and cornstarch until pale yellow. Slowly add half of almond milk to egg-yolks, whisking constantly. This tempers the egg yolks so they won't curdle. Pour everything back into the saucepan. Still working over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil while whisking constantly. Once the mixture comes to a boil, continue whisking vigorously until it thickens, about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and stir in almond extract and butter. Allow it to cool completely. Like I said, my pastry cream isn't the most appetizing color, so I think next time I may try making this recipe with maple syrup instead of the Rapadura.

When everything is cooked, baked, and cooled--in my case the following morning so I could have enough light to take photos--then fillings can be added to the tart crust. Since the chocolate was a lot thicker and heavier than the pastry cream, I spread that on the shell first, then added the pastry cream as a topping. Yum.

  

Here are more photos of the crust and filling once the tart had chilled for a while after the final assembly. Apart from the odd color of the pastry cream, I'm really happy with how this recipe came out. The crust is more like a cookie base than a flaky pastry, as one would expect with a fruit tart, which this was intended to be. The pastry cream is light and sweet, very similar in consistency to pudding, and the chocolate is awesome.

  

I won't lie, the quinoa flour does leave a bit of its flavor behind. It's not so much an aftertaste as more of a flavor undertone, but if you didn't know the quinoa flour was in there you might not even notice it. I'm glad I tried this recipe, as I think the crust could be used with a variety of sweet fillings. I may try it again with a different flour and see how it does.

Chocolate Mousse Tart-Type Thing

Whenever I'm bored or procrastinating I tend to browse recipes. I have several apps on my iPhone in addition to numerous cookbooks I like to peruse, and then of course there's the infinite Internet. I'm terrible at making decisions and hate to go grocery shopping, so I usually pick recipes that call for ingredients I already have on hand and, in most cases, need to go ahead a use because they've been around for a while.

I recently made a dairy-free chocolate mousse I saw on the recipes section of the Whole Foods website. Mine didn't come out nearly as smooth and creamy as their picture, but it still tastes good even if the texture is off. The trouble was that the recipe made quite a lot, and I couldn't help thinking that it would be better as a filling for something rather than just eaten on its own.

I figured I'd try pairing it with the same tart crust I used to make those Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Tarts last year, except I didn't have enough pecans, and I couldn't be bothered to toast them. Instead I used half pecans and half walnuts, but then I think I processed the crust too much because it was pretty moist and didn't seem like it would go all that well with the mousse. I was really wanting a cookie-type crust, not a thicker and denser version of the mousse, so after I pressed the crust mixture into a loose-bottom tart pan I baked it in the oven to try and firm it up and dry it out. This made it more like a dense brownie. Not exactly what I envisioned, but I had to go with it.

Chocolate Mousse
3/4 cup raw cashews
1 cup packed pitted dates (about 20)
1 (15-ounce) can pureed pumpkin (the recipe actually calls for butternut squash, but I didn't have any.)
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cover cashews and dates in with hot water and soak for 2 hours to soften. Drain well.

  

Place cashews, dates, pumpkin, and coconut milk in food processor bowl and process until smooth. Add cocoa powder and vanilla, and process until smooth and mousse-like, adding a bit more coconut milk if needed. Chill at least 1 hour or until ready to serve.

As mentioned, mine didn't quite make it to the smooth and mousse-like stage no matter how long I processed it, so I eventually gave up and just accepted that my would have some coarse bits of cashew in it.

 

Tart Crust
3 cups nuts, I used half pecans and half walnuts
3/4 cup pitted dates, roughly chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 TBSP cocoa powder

I upped the cocoa powder to 3 tablespoons this time, while decreasing the salt by a bit and only adding 1 tsp of vanilla instead of 2. What the heck, since this whole ensemble was pretty much an experiment anyway.

 

Process the nuts and salt in food processor until they look like coarse crumbs. Add the cocoa powder, dates, and vanilla then process until well combined.

Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a loose-bottom tart pan. I think this one is 9 inches, but I could've used an 11-inch tart pan for a thinner crust and it may have turned out better. I then baked it in a 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes.

 

Cool completely before adding the chocolate mousse filling, then chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Garnish as desired with, well, anything you want really.

 

I melted 2 bars of white chocolate (Lindtis good stuff) then stirred in some coconut oil so it wouldn't set up quite so firm, and allowed it to cool until it was thick enough to pipe some oversized rosettes around the tart's top edge. I wouldn't call this creation a total failure, as it's certainly edible, but the crust fell apart as soon as I sliced into it, which was disappointing, and the mousse not being totally smooth really bugs me.

 

Chocolate Mousse

Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Tarts

I saw this recipe on the Food Network website: Truffle Tarts with Raspberries. The picture looked so deliciously tempting, but I wasn't thrilled with the idea of using Oreos or chocolate wafer cookies, due to the gluten and other ingredients I try to avoid in processed foods. So, I did a little experimenting, trying to come up with a healthier version. They came out pretty good, so I thought I'd share my results. I think this recipe could be improved. Maybe next time I'll try using walnuts instead of toasted pecans.

If you're lucky enough to have individual loose-bottom or springform tart pans, now is a great opportunity to use them. Otherwise, cut strips of parchment paper to line the cavities of a standard cupcake pan like this:

Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Tarts

For the crust:

3 cups pecans (I toasted mine)

3/4 cup pitted dates, roughly chopped

3/4 tsp salt

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 TBSP cocoa powder

1/2 cup frozen raspberries (more or less to taste)

Toast pecans on a sheet pan in a 350 degree oven if desired.

Pit and chop dates.

(Sorry, the photo of the chopped dates came out too blurry to use)

Process pecans, salt, and cocoa powder in food processor until mixed into a coarse powder. Add dates and vanilla and process until well mixed.

Evenly divide and press mixture into the cups of muffin pan. Now, the reason I use frozen raspberries is because they're easier to handle and you can crumble them into small pieces. Place about a teaspoon of crumbled frozen raspberries in the bottom of each tart shell. You can use more or less to suit your own taste, or try something else like toasted shredded coconut, or add nothing.

Chocolate Truffle filling:

1 cup coconut milk

16 oz good-quality bittersweet chocolate (go for the best you can find, at least 60%)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Melt chocolate using your method of choice (microwave, double boiler). Add coconut milk and vanilla extract. Stir until smooth then allow to cool to room temperature. Place in mixer bowl and beat at medium speed until it thickens and becomes light in color. It will go from this:

To this:

Handy tip: Place a food storage bag/plastic disposable piping bag inside a tumbler to fill it with the ganache.

Then cut off the tip and squeeze the filling into the tart shells, completely covering the raspberries.

Smooth the tops with a spatula, and then refrigerate for 2 hours. They will come out of the pan easily thanks to the parchment paper strips.

Here's a shot of the inside. Mmmm, raspberries.