Posted in Recipes on 28.05.2019

Chocolate Custard Tarts

prep: 30 mins / cook: 25 mins / inactive: 60 mins / total: 1 hour 55 mins / quantity: 6 tarts Print recipe?

Crisp pastry surrounds a creamy chocolate custard filling in these sublime vegan tarts!

Before making these I wondered what base to use to house the chocolate custard. My first thought was a version of the shell used on this Nutty Truffle Tart where both the base and filling are essentially raw. But not everyone loves nuts quite as much as I do! And I really want people to not be afraid to make their own pastry.

It’s really not at all scary and there’s no unusual ingredients!

Vegan pastry is largely made exactly the same way as normal shortcrust pastry or sweet pastry.

The difference is that for vegan pastry you use vegan butter and then just water to bind the pastry together instead of egg yolk. Yes it’s marginally less rich in flavour without the egg but the rich custard filling in these more than makes up for it. Good news for the hens and baby male chicks too! (Please read this link if you’re not vegan and want to understand a bit better about the consequences of choosing to eat eggs).

For this shortcrust pastry all you need to do is cube the vegan butter and add it to the flour. Then using just your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until all the large lumps have gone and you have something left that looks like sand or breadcrumbs. I’ve then stirred through a couple of tablespoons of sugar but if you want to keep your shortcrust pastry and over all tart less sweet you can omit the sugar.

Personally, and as there’s not a lot of sugar in the chocolate custard, I like a dash of sugar in the pastry too. These tarts aren’t overly sweet and they’re not cloyingly rich. The custard is delicious and chocolatey with just a hint of orange but the tarts themselves are light and delicate.

The pastry is then bound together using cold water. Cold water and gentle handling means the butter laminates through the pastry rather than melts, giving you that much sought after short crust – pastry crust that’s light and crumbly and melts in your mouth. Overworking the pastry or using warm ingredients can lead to a tough, chewy and dense pastry. How much water you add depends on a few things – humidity, flour and accurate measuring. I always add less than I think I need then add more as I gently bring the ingredients together to form the dough.

You’ll then wrap and chill your pastry for around 30 minutes (or even a few days in advance if you’re preparing ahead) before rolling out and lining your tins.

Once I’ve lined the tins I then freeze them. This means I don’t have to bake blind with bits of parchment and beans or rice because personally I find that a faff! You can still do that if you’d prefer of course. If you freeze them, they only need 30 minutes as they’re thin and freeze quickly.

And the chocolate custard couldn’t be simpler! If you’ve ever made custard with custard powder it’s largely the same principle.

Mix a little bit of the milk with the cornflour (instead of custard powder) and boil the rest. Whisk in the sugar just as it boils then whisk in the milky cornflour until you have a thick custard. Then whisk in the chocolate till it’s melted. I’ve used one of the Doisy & Dam vegan Goji and Orange bars. Because it’s bloody lush and because I wanted the hint of orange in the custard. Pour your chocolate custard into your cooked tart bases and marvel at your kitchen skills – you just made your own pastry and your own custard 😉

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