A Fabulous, Rich Chocolate Tart That’s Vegan–But You’d Never Know It

I’m not a vegan myself nor do I plan to ever become one, but it’s an interesting challenge to have a vegan guest for dinner. My friend Aubrey had made some vegan chocolate tartlets last year for our church Christmas party and I just about passed out when I ate one of them. Astonishing! I couldn’t believe that it didn’t have any butter or eggs in it. So I set out to reproduce this experience as part of our desserts for my sister-in-law’s birthday dinner on Dec. 30 since a vegan friend of hers was coming, and I found one online that sounded pretty good. The original was also gluten free, but I had no need for that and didn’t want to buy tapioca starch and sweet rice flour. I can’t stand being told that I need some specialty ingredient but only a small amount! The original called for only two tablespoons of the tapioca flour, so I’d be buying a whole bag that would then sit on my pantry shelf. But one item that the recipe does call for and which you should always have on hand is tahini, that is, sesame-seed paste. I’ve bought high-end tahini through the mail (and paid a pretty high-end price), but actually I like the stuff you can find at the grocery store just fine. Tahini and chocolate are an inspired combination.

(I have to stop here and say that one of my favorite, favorite cookbook authors, Ann Hodgman, who wrote the inimitable Beat This!, Beat That, and One Bite Won’t Kill You, came out with a vegan cookbook in 2017, saying that she’d always known she’d go vegan at some point in her life. But I’m not linking to that one, because—and I’m not making this up—she uses Crisco in some of her recipes. This is supposed to be better for you than butter? Or even better for the planet? Sorry, no.)

Anyway, I rather liked the challenge of finding and making a rich, chocolate, vegan dessert, and I ran across the recipe below on a website called The Bojon Gournet. Take a look—the photographs are spectacular. However, pretty as it is to drizzle the caramel over the top of the tart and therefore get the decorative element and the celebrated “pour shot” (which requires you to have three hands or one assistant), I didn’t want to do it that way because then you wouldn’t get the caramel in every bite. And that’s important! Also, I didn’t read the directions carefully and didn’t realize that you were supposed to separate out the solids of the coconut cream and just whip that element. I chilled the can as directed, shook it up, and whipped it. The results were rather runny, and when I re-read the recipe I realized my mistake. However, the leftovers were the perfect consistency of whipped cream the next day. (By the way, there’s no need to use gelatin or some weird stabilizer in your whipped cream should you want to whip it in advance. Just use powdered sugar—since it has a small amount of cornstarch, it works well to keep the whipped cream from weeping.) So just try to give yourself a couple of hours for the whipped coconut cream to set. I liked the whipped coconut cream so much that I may start using it instead of regular dairy whipping cream. (But I have family members who don’t like coconut, so maybe not. In any case, please, please, please, don’t use fake products such as Cool Whip or Reddi-Whip. Please! Or non-dairy creamers. Just read the ingredient list and you’ll see why.)

A couple of last comments on ingredients before I give you the recipe: First of all, this whole idea of “alternative sugars.” I’ve written about this issue before and would encourage you to read that post. However, this recipe calls for coconut sugar, an ingredient I didn’t address there and so will include some info on here. Basically, as always, if you just remember that “added sugar is sugar, regardless of its source,” you’ll be safe from succumbing to hype. Coconut sugar is not dried, ground coconut as you might think. It’s the dried sap from the coconut palm tree, so you could think of it as very similar to maple sugar, which is the dried sap from a maple tree. Same diff, as I often say. While coconut sugar has some vitamins, minerals and fiber, these healthful ingredients are very minimal. On the whole it’s not that much different from the white stuff. (Read this informative article if you don’t believe me!) I wondered a little bit about using coconut sugar to make caramel, but since it’s basically the same as regular sugar it behaves about the same. I was very pleased with the results using this ingredient, but I didn’t have to buy it because my mother-in-law had a big bag of it and was happy for me to use some of it up. You could certainly just use brown sugar, or even regular old white sugar. Also, the original recipe called for “organic granulated cane sugar” as an ingredient in the crust. Well, folks, you can certainly spend your money that way if you want to, but again–sugar is sugar. Just don’t use very much, and it isn’t going to matter what it is, at least as far as I’m concerned. Also, let me just address the issue of “vegan butter,” which was called for in a couple of places in the original recipe. I refuse, and you should too, to buy or use anything that’s trying to pretend to be something it’s not. Vegan butter is basically margarine. Just use the coconut oil. And finally (is she ever going to stop? you may ask), this whole issue of salt. The original recipe calls for “fine sea salt.” All salt is sea salt in one way or another. Again, for the small amount of this ingredient that most recipes call for you can just use the plain old supermarket stuff. The only thing to really care about is whether or not you’re supposed to use table, or “fine,” salt, or kosher, “coarse,” salt, as the volumes are very different. And then there’s all this hoop-de-doo about Diamond Crystal salt vs. other kosher salts. Don’t drive yourself crazy, I say. I have the cheapest grocery store brands for both kinds and nobody’s complained yet. (Now, to be fair, there are some probably minute flavor variations in salts from different sources, and some people like to use ones they like as what are called “finishing salts,” that is, salts that are sprinkled on at the end of cooking. So that’s totally up to them. Melissa Clark has a whole “salt drawer;” I’ll post the video of her giving a tour of her kitchen below.)

Okay. Here’s the recipe at last. My best calculation of sugar, based on using dark chocolate and having it cut into 12 servings is right at 26 grams. If it’s cut into 10 pieces the sugar content is more around 30. Not too bad for such an indulgent dessert!