Sunday, 14 August 2022 | 22°C Dublin
Oat, raspberry and chocolate tart. Picture by Susan Jane White.
Whenever my boys want a trashy treat or sticky slab of cake, I’m secretly delighted. That’s because one of my all-time favourite hobbies, as you know, is sneaking extra nutrition into dishes where usually there is none. And chocolate tart is braying for a makeover.
A part from upgrading the chocolate to a 70pc dark variety, and using oat milk in place of heavy cream, we’re recruiting oats and almonds to make a base. Oats have astral amounts of fibre for our pipes, while almonds offer goodie bags of vitamin E. This is the vitamin hailed as our skin’s BFF (teens will wildly applaud).
The ratio of oat to almond is key, however. Go overboard on oats and the base will feel like cardboard. So be sure to get your mitts on ground almonds to deliver a sexy shortbread edge to the recipe. And instead of boring white sugar, we’re using good raspberry jam to sweeten the deal. Angels would weep.
Oat, raspberry and chocolate tart. Picture by Susan Jane White.
1-2 teaspoons olive oil 80g oats 100g ground almonds A generous pinch of flaky sea salt 3 tablespoons maple syrup 3 tablespoons good coconut oil or butter, melted 100g excellent raspberry jam 200ml oat milk 200g dark chocolate, chopped
1 Fire up your oven to 180C, 350F, Gas 4. Try to get your mitts on an 18cm or 20cm fluted loose-bottomed tin. A regular loose-bottomed brownie tin also works in a pinch. Loose-bottomed tins are not expensive to buy online, but it might be worth asking a neighbour if they have a fancy fluted one to borrow. Grease your tin with clean fingertips and olive oil. If your tin is fluted, extra attention to the frilly edge is important to prevent cracks and tantrums.
2 To make the crust, blitz the oats into a fine flour using a coffee grinder or a blender. Let the ground oats party in a bowl with the ground almonds and sea salt.
3 Then whisk the maple syrup and melted fat together until glossy. When it’s well mixed, pour over the dry ingredients and coat everything really well. Let the mixture soak for at least 10 minutes before pressing into your greased tin. It’s not like pastry — no rolling is required.
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4 Bring the mixture all the way up the sides and press down firmly as you go. Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork before baking for 12-14 minutes.
5 Remove from the oven once cooked, and leave to cool for at least an hour before anointing with raspberry jam. I like a thin layer over the crust, and enough to peep up the sides.
6 To make the ganache filling, heat the oat milk until you can see steam rising from the surface — it should be almost scalding, but not boiling. Pour the hot oat milk over your finely chopped dark chocolate and stir with a spatula (not with a whisk or a fork). The ganache will come together fairly quickly.
7 As soon as it’s smooth, pour over your raspberry pastry shell. Let the tart relax at room temperature before refrigerating to set.
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