Vegan lemon tarts
Vegan lemon tarts are something I wanted to make for the longest time. The main reason I didn’t make them earlier is that I could not find a fitting mould for a tart. Seems like a dumb excuse, but I just wanted them to look perfect. Instead of one large, I found a bunch of small tart moulds, which I tought were super cute. And so I ended up with several mini lemon tarts.
I wanted to make this recipe as easy as possible, so I made it with a crust that you don’t have to bake. So these vegan lemon tarts are sweet, refreshing, creamy and very easy to make.
You might notice that the ingredients for the lemon cream are similar to the ones I used in my previous recipes. The thing is, I have a lot of agar agar and cocoa butter left, so I tought I might put them to good use, instead of going out and buying new ingredients.
I am not going to lie to you, this is not the healthiest dessert on planet earth. Aside from lemon juice and a pinch of turmeric, there are not many ingredients that can be very good for you. So today I am going to skip that section where I talk about the health benefits. The healthy thing about these is that they are vegan.
Besides, it’s okay to spoil yourself from time to time, and what better way than to make these delicious tarts.
A piece of advice
As I already mentioned, this is a very easy recipe and anyone can make it. However, there are things that I want to point out, so that I can make this process even easier for you.
First of all, I would like to mention that you don’t have to use golden Oreos for the crust. You can use any type of vegan cookie. Just make sure it is sweet like the oreos, and if not, you can add some maple syrup or sugar. That being said, some cookies might require a larger or smaller amount of margarine. You will notice if that is the case while mixing the two together. If the crust is too crumbly and can’t be shaped properly, add more melted margarine.
Cocoa butter is optional, but it will sure give the lemon cream a more creamy texture. When you mix all of the cream ingredients together, taste the cream to see if you need more sugar (but have in mind that the crust is already sweet).
Turmeric is used only for the coloring. I tought that a half of a teaspoon was enough to get the right color of a lemon tart. If you think you need less, that’s fine too.
Don’t forget to mix agar agar and starch with some water before adding them to the mixture. That way you will prevent them from forming clumps in the lemon cream. And make sure that you bring the mixture to boil over medium temperature, and to stir the mix every now and then. Do not switch the temperature to high and do not overboil the lemon cream.
These measurements make about 5 mini tarts (depending on the size of the moulds). However, you can also make one medium or large tart using these measurements, if you have only one biger mould. That was my original idea, but well, things change.
You can decorate the vegan lemon tarts if you want to. For mine I used slices of lemon and some fresh red currants. But of course, you can do that your own way. If you get inspired and come up with something different I would sure like to see it. For the next time I might use some flowers and powdered sugar.
Vegan lemon tarts
Ingredients
600 g of golden Oreos (or any other cookies)
250 g of vegan margarine
380 ml of full fat coconut milk
120 ml of lemon juice
60 g of sugar
1 tbsp of cocoa butter
1 tsp of agar agar (mixed with some water)
½ tsp of turmeric
1 tbsp of starch (mixed with some water)
Directions
- Remove all the filling from your Oreo cookies. Put them in the blender and blend until there are no chunks left. Melt the margarine and add it to the ground cookies. Mix the two together.
- Spray the tart moulds with non-stick spray. Scoop out the cookie crust and place it in each tart mould. Press it down and on the sides with your fingers to form a crust. Leave the moulds in the fridge while you make the lemon cream.
- Put the coconut milk, sugar, starch, cocoa butter, lemon juice, turmeric and agar-agar in a saucepan and mix over medium heat until the cocoa butter has melted.
- Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat and let it boil for 2-3 minutes. Take the lemon cream off the stove and take the moulds out of the fridge. Pour the cream into the moulds over the cookie crust.
- Let them cool completely on room temperature. Put the vegan lemon tarts in the refrigerator overnight.
If you liked this recipe, make sure you check out my other recipes like:
–
vegan lemon cakes with blueberry jam
– dark chocolate pistachio panna cotta
Feel free to tell me what you think about this in the comments below, or send
me the pictures of your own vegan lemon tarts. If you did something
differently, I would also like to hear that, I’d love to see the things you come
up with.
P.S. for more recipes like this and a bunch of other stuff, follow me
on instagram, @margo_drobi.
Also, I recently started a Patreon page, where you can subscribe and help me create more/better content. In return, you will get an exclusive piece of content (recipe) each month. My plan is to increase the amount of that content if I gain a few subscribers. If you are interested and you want to find out more, I will leave the link to my Patreon right – here.
