Spicy cocoa and almond cookies (gluten-free)

It was A's birthday last week and I wanted to do something for it. But he didn't want. Quite emphatically. However, he was excited about going to volunteer at Drumlin Farm (where our friend D works) on Saturday, so I decided to try to make his day there as awesome as possible. Obviously a birthday needs sweet treats. Cake wouldn't have been practical, but I was daydreaming about cocoa-spiced cookies. A doesn't eat gluten so they needed to be gluten-free, but I had some eggs left he'd given me from his farmshare so an egg was do-able. I browsed over at this blog to see if there was anything that would save me making up a recipe (my time was short!), and found exactly what I was looking for, so followed that recipe.

We ate these on our lunchbreak at the farm, along with some peaches from a neighbouring farm and a whole yellow watermelon that was so ripe it had split during harvest that morning. The cookies were good: everyone seemed to like them. They were also very quick and easy to make - I threw them together in half an hour before going out on Friday evening, leaving them to cool til I got back (nb my almonds were pre-toasted). It felt good to give something back, both to the farm by volunteering and to D and A via cookies - all of them have given me a lot!

(made 11 big ones - would make more if smaller)

1/2 cup (55g) ground almonds
1/2 cup (60g) rice flour (brown or white)
1/4 cup (25g) cornstarch
1/2 cup (55g) cocoa powder
1/4 cup (55g) brown sugar
1/4 cup (50g) demerara sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/4-1/2 tsp chilli powder / cayenne
1/2 cup (65g) lightly toasted almonds, roughly chopped
1/2 cup ( 60g) chocolate, roughly chopped
1/4 cup (60ml) veg oil (used safflower)
1 egg (or 1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 2 1/2 tbsp boiling water)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1-2 tbsp fake milk

Heat oven to 180C/350F. Line a oven tray with baking paper or grease with oil. Put dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well together with a fork. Add chopped almonds and chocolate and mix. In a separate, small bowl mix together the oil, egg and vanilla. Add wet to dry and mix to form a soft dough, adding 1-2 tbsp of fake milk until a moist (but not wet) consistency is obtained. Roll 2 tbsp of mixture into a ball, flatten and place on oven tray. Repeat with remaining dough. Bake for 12-15 min until just cooked. These cookies do not flatten out much more once cooked. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool on the tray.


Big thumbs up from everyone: gorgeous balance of sweet, spicy, bitter, crunch and squish - not too dry or too crumbly. Note, I want to try out making cookies with roasted cocoa as described here - didn't have time to experiment this time but another batch soon!

Elderflower, honey and cornmeal biscuits (gluten-free)

I found elderflowers the other day for the first time in ages, and made elderflower cordial. A lot of flowers were falling off the heads I collected, so I saved and dried the fallen ones (spread them on a baking sheet in the oven with it switched off (it has a pilot light so is always warm) for about 24 hours). Then I stashed them until yesterday, when I had the oven on to make bread and felt like doing some experimental baking as well. These are inspired by this recipe. I used all the elderflowers I'd dried (started out with two baking trays spread with fresh flowers, ended up with 3/8 loosely-packed cup dried flowers).
 
(Makes ~12 medium sized biscuits)

30g icing sugar
2 tsp honey
20g grapeseed oil
20g olive oil
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 1 1/2 tbsp boiling water
75g fine cornmeal
25g cornstarch
Pinch of salt
3/8 cup dried elderflowers*

Heat oven to 360F. Beat sugar, honey and oils together in a mixing bowl. Add linseed mixture and beat some more, so it goes thick. Add elderflowers, cornmeal, cornstarch and salt and mix until combined. Flatten to about 1cm thick, use a cutter to cut flower or circle shapes, then transfer to baking sheets and bake for about 10 min, until they are golden. Let cool on the tray for 10 min then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.

*I think this would also work with dried chamomile (or maybe calendula) - I have been meaning to test this out as I have some of each at home.


The batter was a bit greasy and soft, and I wondered if I should have used less oil. But they baked up lovely: the honey and elderflower come together in a wonderful, delicate, slightly flowery sweetness. And the cornmeal adds crunch; with the biscuits coming out beautifully yellow, flecked with brown from the linseed mixture (use golden linseed if you want to avoid this). I didn't bother lining or greasing the baking sheets and they came off just fine. I made flower shapes because I have an accidentally, ridiculously big selection of cutters (came in a bargain pack with something I wanted), and I couldn't resist the kitsch. But round ones would also be fine. Remember that because this is a GF dough there is absolutely nothing to worry about regarding handling the dough - re-roll and re-cut as much as you need to.

Turkish delight

I'd got it into my head I wanted to make Turkish delight a while ago, which spurred a quest to find cream of tartar (which was quite difficult, in the end I bought it online). Then I had the cream of tartar, but it took me a long time to get around to making the Turkish delight. This weekend seemed to be the time: perhaps because it is a surprisingly vegan food (happy days, I always liked it and hoped it wasn't made with gelatine) and we were invited to a vegan party on Saturday evening... But we ended up taking pretzels there and I took the Turkish delight to a non vegan brunch on Sunday morning instead. It didn't really seem like conventional brunch food but I figured anything goes for brunch... right?

I followed this recipe, almost exactly, with the addition of some red food colouring to make it pink.

2 cups granulated sugar
5/8 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
2 1/8 cups water
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
3/4 tbsp rosewater
2-3 drops red food colouring
1/2 cup icing sugar
Vegetable oil

Grease the inside of an approx 8 in square / 2 in deep baking pan (or similar) with vegetable oil. Line with baking paper and grease the paper.

In a saucepan, combine the lemon juice, granulated sugar and 3/4 cup water on medium heat. Stir constantly until sugar dissolves. Allow mixture to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until the mixture reaches 240F, or firm ball stage (when tested by dropping a tsp into water). Remove from heat and set aside.

Combine cream of tartar, 1/2 cup cornstarch and remaining 1 3/8 cups water in a second saucepan over medium heat. Stir until all lumps are gone and the mixture begins to boil. Stop stirring when the mixture has a glue like consistency. Stir in the lemon juice, water and sugar mixture. Stir constantly for about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low, and allow to simmer for 1 hour, stirring frequently. Once the mixture has become a golden colour, stir in rosewater and food colouring. Pour mixture into paper-lined pan. Spread evenly and allow to cool overnight.

The following day, lift the Turkish delight out of the pan onto a clean surface using the edges of the paper. Cut with a sharp, oiled knife into approx 1 inch squares. Mix the icing sugar and remaining 1/8 cup cornstarch in a bowl. Roll the Turkish delight pieces in the icing sugar mixture until they are well covered. Eat right away, or keep in an airtight container in layers separated with baking paper.


This worked surprisingly well, although not perfectly. The end result was a very pleasant, pink Turkish delight with a subtle rose flavour. It was tricky but not impossible judging the sugar stage (I don't have a sugar thermometer). The finished result was slightly wet: after the sugar coating it wetted most of the covering sugar so I had to re-coat it before taking it out. Not really a problem, but it looks much prettier when freshly dusted. Not sure why it happened: perhaps the initial sugar solution should have been boiled for longer? or perhaps I should have let it sit longer before coating it with icing sugar? or perhaps it was just to do with the humid weather? Could have increased the rosewater to 1 tbsp: it was maybe a little too subtle. And the colour was slightly pinker than I wanted: two drops of colouring would probably be enough.

Note: an idea from the original recipe's comments to help with the sweating: cut it into pieces and let air dry while turning frequently for another 2 days before sugar coating - perhaps leave in the switched-off oven overnight?

Hamantaschen (vegan and gluten-free)

L-R: normal dough with prune-poppyseed filling, GF dough with apricot-almond filling, GF dough with spiced fig-cocoa filling

Before I came to the US I knew little about Jewish culture. Then we moved into a historically Jewish neighbourhood (our nearest shops are a Jewish bakery and a Jewish butchery; most of the businesses around here close on Saturdays). And I discovered that really quite many of the people I'd befriended here are Jewish. However much they do or don't practice the rest of the year, they've done a good job of educating me about important festivals (and the food involved). My friend A in particular (my partner in baking for awesome cakes) has invited us for her version of Passover and Rosh Hashanah celebrations every year, and also fed me my first Hamantaschen.

Ever since I tried Hamantaschen I wanted to make them, and to make them vegan (and GF so my friends A+H can eat them). They are basically a free-standing jam tart, folded into a triangular shape, with some sort of fruity or seedy filling in the middle. They are traditionally eaten for Purim.  Loosely, Purim: is 'like the Jewish Halloween' ie people get dressed up; you're supposed to get so drunk you forget the difference between good and evil (or something like that); Haman is a villain involved somewhere; Hamantaschen are supposed to represent Haman's hat (?). Purim is always around this time of year, although it varies and this year it was actually late February, when I was very much distracted by Pancake Day and S's birthday, so I didn't get around to Hamantaschen until I was reminded by this post - it seemed like exactly the recipe I had been dreaming of. I decided to follow the recipe to ensure success for some, and make a series of deviations for others.

Normal dough
(makes 20-25 - taken from this recipe)
1/3 cup coconut oil (solid state)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 7/8 cups flour
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Gluten-free dough
(makes 20-25)
1/3 cup coconut oil (solid state)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup almond milk
1 3/4 tsp vanilla essence
1/8 tsp almond essence
1/2 cup almond meal
3/4 cup gluten-free oat flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup glutinous rice flour
1 tbsp chickpea flour
3 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum

Prune and poppyseed filling*:
4 oz dried prunes, chopped
1/8 cup poppyseeds
1/8 cup sugar
1 tbsp rum
1 tbsp orange juice
water

Apricot and almond filling*:
4 oz dried apricots, chopped
1/8 cup almonds, finely chopped
1/8 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp rum
water

Spiced fig and cocoa filling*:
(inspired by the delicious Fichi Girotti (stuffed fig sweetmeats) we ate in the town of Amelia in Italy)
4 oz dried figs, chopped
1/8 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/8 cup sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp mahlab
2 tbsp candied orange peel
1/2 tsp orange zest
1/8 tsp almond essence
1 tbsp rum
water

* Each filling recipe given here makes enough to fill approx 1/3 of the total from the combined GF + normal dough quantities above. Other alternative fillings are any kind of jam, thick stewed fruit, nutella, anything you like really.

To make dough, beat the coconut oil and sugar together in a mixing bowl with a fork until well combined (will still be a bit crumbly). Warm the milk to about hand hot and add it to the bowl gradually, beating to incorporate. Add in the essence(s) and zest (if using). Separately, mix together the flour(s), cornstarch, baking powder and salt (and xanthan gum if using) with a fork. Add about half of the flour mix to the oil mix and beat until combined. Then add the rest of the flour and mix until a stiff dough is formed. It will still be a little soft. Wrap the ball(s) (make two if doing a double quantity of either dough) in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 30-60 min.

In the meantime, make the filling(s). Put the dried fruit in a small pan with the nuts or seeds, sugar and any dried spices. Measure the liquid ingredients into a measuring cup and make the quantity of liquid up to 1/4 cup by adding water, then add the liquid to the pan. Cover and simmer until the dried fruit are soft and squishy. Add more water if it seems to be getting too thick - it should end up like a thick jam.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two or more baking sheets with baking paper. Flour a clean surface, then take a ball of dough out of the fridge, remove clingfilm and roll out to about 3mm thick. Cut into circles about 3 inches diameter (I used a Coke glass). Put a tsp of filling in the centre of a dough circle, then fold up three sides to create a shape like a tricorn hat, pinching the corners together tightly. Repeat for all the circles, moving the completed tricorns to the baking sheet when done. Gather the excess dough and roll out again to make more circles and continue with the process until all the tricorns are filled. Bake the biscuits for 18-20 minutes, checking and rotating the sheets after 10 min. The bases will colour golden, but the tops will remain quite pale. Cool on a wire rack.


My favourites of all these variants were the GF dough with apricot filling - if you were going to make one kind of dough and one kind of filling that's what I would recommend. The GF dough held its shape much better than the normal one - I think mainly because it puffed up less. Half to two thirds of the normal dough ones came undone at the corners while cooking, and where I'd used a runnier filling especially they ended up as circular cookies covered in jam. In those cases, plenty of jam slid off onto the baking sheet and I was very glad I'd lined the sheets with paper - would have been a huge pain to clean otherwise.

All in all, I thought these were great (they took me a while to make, but that would be much reduced if you stuck to one kind of dough and one kind of filling). And all the ones I took to a seed swap this morning disappeared (a particular hit with one little girl), so they seemed to be a success. There's loads of scope for varying the recipe (even more than I did already) - was thinking a savoury version might make a great canape. I love the cleverness of the simple folding - you can make an open tart without needing any kind of a baking mold.

Custard

I had three egg yolks left over from making zimtsterne, needed to use them up. I have long been of the opinion that Bird's custard beats out real custard by a mile, thought I should check this out once and for all. Used this recipe.

1 1/2 cups milk
2 tsp cornflour
1 tbsp sugar
3 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Mix 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornflour in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. When the cornflour is dissolved, slowly add the rest of the milk and sugar, and cook over moderate heat until the sauce starts to thicken and comes to a boil. Remove from heat.

In a small bowl, beat egg yolks with a fork. Take a cup of the mixture, and slowly add to the eggs, beating briskly as you pour. Stir the egg mixture back into the saucepan mixture. Bring back to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, and add the vanilla.


Definitely far inferior to Bird's. Next time I have leftover egg yolks I shall make something else - perhaps a version of egg yolk ravioli.

Thanksgiving - more pumpkin

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  Feeling a little detached - everyone is making big food plans and / or heading home across the country - S+I are privately just like: ummmm so you just want to eat lots of turkey?  not really our bag...  Although some friends from the South have invited us to help them drink beer and deep-fry turkey in their front yard.  I assumed this meant deep-frying bits of turkey in the style of KFC, but then today I saw this video and a wave of realisation swept over me - this is serious!  So yeah, right now our plan is to go to the best vegan restaurant in town and eat their 4-course thanksgiving menu, then head over to M+S's place to observe the turkey action...

One thing I love about Thanksgiving is pumpkin pie.  Well, sweet pumpkin anything is pretty much awesome.  I already cooked pumpkin for Halloween, but yeah, what's this season all about but excess?

Pumpkin Cardamom Cake

This year: Pumpkin Cardamom Cake

(from this recipe)

1/4 cup fake milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
3 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 tsp ground cardamom

Put the soy milk into a jug and add the vinegar, leave to curdle.  Put dry ingredients into a bowl and mix well with a fork.

To the milk and vinegar mix add the oil, pumpkin puree and the vanilla and mix.  Add wet to dry and mix until just combined.

Spoon into muffin tin or cake tin(s) and cook at 350F until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean (25-30 min).


These are goood - lovely warm orange colour, good texture, bold cardamom taste - perhaps a little too much cardamom, but I love the stuff so that's fine by me.


Last year: Pumpkin Pie

(from this recipe)

For the crust:
1/2 cup unbleached flour
7 tbsp whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp veg oil
3 tbsp soy milk + 1/2 tsp lemon juice
3 to 4 tbsp water 

For the filling:
2 cups pumpkin purée
1 cup fake milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar cane syrup (just used sugar / maple syrup instead)
1/4 cup cornflour (used regular flour instead - didn't expect it to work but it did!)
1/2 tbsp dark molasses or to taste (didn't have so used maple syrup instead)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice

To make puree:
Heat oven to 400F, cut pumpkin or squash in half and place, cut side down, on a lightly oiled baking sheet.  Bake for 30-40 min until collapsing when poked.  Scoop out the innards and mash them up.  Can freeze if more than needed.  Can use tinned if preferred.


To make crust:
In a mixing bowl, combine both flours, salt, sugar and baking powder.  In small bowl, mix oil and soy milk mixture.
Pour liquid mixture into dry ingredients and mix with a fork until it holds together in a ball.  If it is too dry, add some water, a little at a time, until dough is moist enough to roll.  (If time allows, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.)
Roll out dough onto clingfilm with a lightly floured rolling pin, forming an 11-inch circle.  Line a 9-inch pie plate with the dough.  Flute or crimp the edges with your fingers or a fork.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
Preheat oven to 425F.

To make filling:
In large bowl, mix all remaining ingredients until smooth and blended. Pour into prepared crust and smooth top.  Bake 10 minutes.
Reduce oven temperature to 350F; bake until filling is set, about 50 minutes.  Set on wire rack to cool, then refrigerate overnight.


I made this twice last year - it wasn't long after I'd gone vegan and this was my first successful vegan baking effort.  Despite not having some of the ingredients and thinking a vegan pumpkin pie wouldn't work, it came out amazingly - all the tastes were there.  I did almost manage to poison a friend with a nut allergy with hidden almond milk in the filling (she was fine, thank goodness).

Gluten-Free Wedding Desserts: Carrot+Pinenut Cake, Chocolate Black Bean Brownies, Lime Tart

Our friends Hannah and Orion got married this weekend.  So we were at Earthlands in Western Mass for the party (+camping Sat night).  H asked me to bring some gluten-free desserts as my contribution (she eats GF).  S and I decided that first up would be as many cherries as we could get from the Haymarket for $20 (below is about 2/3 of them).

I also decided it would be a good opportunity to test out some gluten-free dessert recipes I was curious to try.  Another advantage of vegan food, I have realised, is that it is typically pretty resistant to going off - all this stuff was kept at room temp on a sunny day and was absolutely fine. 

1) Nigella's carrot and pine-nut cake

I found this one on the BBC website, and figured Nigella would know good cake.  I got doubly excited when I realised I could use some carrots we harvested from the community garden last weekend (H+O and I met through the garden).  I also used 2 eggs Sadie gave me the other day when she had loads from her CSA - I feel like eggs are OK if I know they come from a good source, especially if they would otherwise go to waste!

3 tbsp pine nuts
2 medium carrots (approx. 200-250g/7-9oz)
75g/3oz golden sultanas
60ml/2¼fl oz rum (used Pimms instead)
150g/5oz caster sugar
125ml/4½fl oz regular olive oil, plus extra for greasing
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 free-range eggs (used 2 plus 1 flax egg (=1tbsp ground linseed+3tbsp warm water); reckon would work fine with 3 flax eggs)
250g/9oz ground almonds
½ tsp ground nutmeg, or to taste (forgot to put this in)
½ lemon, finely grated zest and juice

For the carrot cake, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line the base of a 23cm/9in round springform cake tin with baking paper and grease the sides with olive oil.

Toast the pine nuts by browning in a dry frying pan; set aside.  Or use pre-toasted ones and skip this.

Coarsely grate the carrots, then sit them on kitchen paper to soak up excess liquid. Set aside.

Put the golden sultanas in a small saucepan with the rum / Pimms, bring to the boil, then turn down and simmer for 3 minutes.

Whisk the sugar and oil until airily mixed.

Whisk in the vanilla extract and eggs and, when well whisked, fold in the ground almonds, nutmeg, grated carrots, golden sultanas (with any rum that clings to them) and, finally, the lemon zest and juice.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared cake tin and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula. The batter will be very shallow in the tin.

Sprinkle the toasted pine nuts over the cake and put it into the oven for 30–40 minutes, or until the top is risen and golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out sticky but more or less clean.

Remove from the oven and let the cake sit in its tin on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then unspring and leave it on the rack to cool.  To serve, transfer the cake to a plate.

This was dense and sticky and yummy.


2) Chocolate Black Bean Brownies

Stumbled across this recipe (liked the blog too) and thought it would be worth testing...  Here's an alternative that might also be worth a try.

~1 1/2 cups black (or black-eyed) beans, defrosted
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup applesauce (edit: tried subbing this with blended silken tofu plus a little more sugar - worked fine)
1/4 cup flour (rice flour for GF)
1/4 cup ground linseed
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
good handful walnuts, coarsely chopped
handful chocolate, coarsely chopped

Heat oven to 350F, and lightly oil a baking pan.

Blend the beans until smooth.  Measure the dry ingredients (except nuts and chocolate) into a bowl and mix with a fork.  Add the applesauce and black-eyed beans and mix thoroughly with a fork.  Add 3/4 of the nuts and mix.

Spread mixture in pan, and bake ~35 minutes, until the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Sprinkle the top with chopped chocolate and nuts, and cool well so that the chocolate re-sets before eating.

These were really simple, and really, surprisingly tasty (quite solid though).  Might need to find an alternative to the applesauce as that's the one thing I don't often have in the cupboard.  I used black-eyed beans as I discovered I didn't actually have any black beans in the freezer, and they were fine.  Often rice flour can impart a nasty gritty texture to baking, but here I think it is in a small enough proportion that it doesn't matter.  I made this again already (since I'd opened the jar of applesauce...)!  This time I sprinkled some chopped walnuts on top as well as the chocolate, so it looked prettier.


3) Lime Tart

I was interested in making something with agar and found this recipe on ppk.  I needed a GF, vegan piecrust, and remembered a nice-looking pie here.  So...

For the crust:
2 cups ground almonds
1 cup ground linseed (used a mixture of linseed and chia)
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp water

For the filling:
1 tablespoon finely grated lime zest (~2 limes)
2/3 cups fresh lime juice (~6-8 limes)
1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk, at room temperature
2 tablespoons agar flakes (or two teaspoons agar powder and skip the soaking step... used powder)
1 16 oz can coconut milk at room temperature
2 tablespoons tapioca flour (used cornstarch)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Heat the oven to 350F.  Mix the almonds, linseed and cornmeal with a fork, then blend as well as possible, while adding salt and cinnamon. Keep going until the mixture becomes forms crumbly clumps. Then add in the water and maple syrup and keep mixing until well combined.  Transfer the mixture to a 9 inch pie plate (lined with foil) and press it into the bottom and sides to form the crust. Make sure the tops of the sides are not too thin.  Bake the crust for 10 minutes, remove and set aside.

Mix the almond milk and agar powder in a saucepan (or soak agar flakes for 15 min).  Separately, mix together coconut milk, cornstarch, sugar and vanilla.  It’s important that the coconut milk is at room temperature so that it doesn’t affect the agar when you add it.

Turn up the heat on the agar and bring to a boil.  Keep a close eye so that it doesn’t boil over.  Immediately reduce heat and let simmer for about 15 minutes, until agar is dissolved.  If using powdered it will only take about 5 minutes to dissolve.

Once dissolved, slowly whisk in the coconut mixture and then the lime juice and zest (don't add too quick - that'll make the agar gel too soon).  Then whisk often for about 10 minutes, until it has thickened.  If it isn’t thickening, turn the heat up, but you don’t want it to boil.

Pour into the pie crust and let cool for about half an hour.  Then move to the fridge for at least 3 hours, until fully set.  Garnish with lime slices, if you like.

I wound up with about twice as much pie crust as I needed, so froze the other half.  I also had too much filling so poured the rest into a bowl and added some pink food colouring.  Probably half quantities would be fine for making one tart in future.  When it was all set I cut the pink stuff into 2cm cubes.  Then I cut some of those into thin hearts to make kitschy decorations.

I liked it, but the jellyish filling and robustly textured crust might not be to everyone's tastes?  The colour was a bit off - could have been more green.  I expected the crust to fall apart but it was fine.  It was quite a lot of work squeezing the limes!


Everything disappeared without trace, so I take that as a good sign!