Learn how to make the cutest mini strawberry tarts – completely vegan!
Bake up an adorable treat with tiny vegan strawberry tarts, featuring a light strawberry filling set into homemade sweet pastry cases.
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These tiny strawberry tarts pack in a lot of flavour. Their creamy filling is wonderfully light, with real strawberry purée adding a delightfully sweet taste.
They’re perfect for adding to an afternoon tea spread, and make an adorable dessert or sweet snack.
Cut a V-shaped notch in the top of your strawberry before you slice it to make a heart-shaped topping for each of your tarts – perfect for Valentine’s or anniversary dinners.
Hack this recipe
Cut down your recipe time by using pre-made pastry. Sweet shortcrust pastry can be a little harder to find than regular, but many are vegan-friendly, and using a pre-made dough can shave up to 30 minutes off your prep time for this recipe.
Pastry tip: When making your own pastry, keep your butter as cold as possible before adding to the food processor. Keep the cubed butter in the fridge right until you need it, especially when making this recipe in the summer months.
How to blind bake your pastry cases
Blind baking is essential for avoiding soggy bottoms on tarts and keeps the pastry cases from puffing up in the oven, ensuring that there’s plenty of space for your filling to be added.
This technique is usually used when the filling does not need to be cooked, as in this recipe, or when the filling will cook much faster than the pastry.
Pricking the bottom of the pastry cases is important as it allows air to escape from underneath the pastry, preventing air bubbles from forming and pushing the pastry base upwards.
The next step in blind baking involves weighing down the pastry to ensure it does not rise. Do this by lining the pastry with greaseproof paper, and adding baking weights on top.
Baking beans are small ceramic balls which make an ideal weight for blind baking as they evenly disperse heat while weighing down pastry. If you don’t have these, homemade alternatives can work just as well.
Rice, dried peas, or lentils make great alternatives and they can work particularly well with mini pastry cases as they fill the small space much better.
Once you’ve used them as baking beans you shouldn’t eat them, but you can keep them in a jar or tub to use for blind baking again.
After your pastry cases have blind baked, carefully remove the baking paper and beans. If the pastry under the greaseproof paper looks a little pale or underdone, return the cases to the oven for five more minutes to finish them off, then leave the cases to cool before adding your filling.
Total Time: 1 hour
Calories: 253
Servings: 6
Rating:
Nutritional information per serving:
Serving size
75g
calories
253
fat
12g
saturates
2.3g
carbs
33g
sugars
13g
fibre
2g
protein
4.3g
salt
0.17g
Total Time: 1 hour
Calories: 253
Servings: 6
Ingredients
Method
Ingredients
(Servings: 6)
- For the pastry
- 20.833333333333 20.833333333333 g plain flour
- 9.1666666666667 9.1666666666667 g cold dairy-free butter, cubed
- 8.3333333333333 8.3333333333333 g icing sugar
- For the filling
- 12.5 12.5 g cashews, soaked overnight
- 16.666666666667 16.666666666667 g strawberries
- 0.16666666666667 0.16666666666667 Tbsp lemon juice
- 0.25 0.25 Tbsp agave syrup
- For the garnish
- 0.16666666666667 0.16666666666667 strawberry, sliced
- You will also need
- 1 1 six-centimetre round tart cases
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/355°F/Gas 4. For the pastry, add the plain flour, butter and icing sugar to a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and bring together with your hands, being careful not to over-work the pastry. If the pastry seems too wet add a little more flour; if it’s too dry add a little water. Once the pastry has come together, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
- Once chilled, remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out to 4-5mm thick. Line each tart case with pastry. Prick the tart bottoms with a fork and blind bake for 15 minutes, then leave to cool.
- For the filling, add all the filling ingredients to a food processor and blend until smooth. Share this mixture between the tart cases and transfer the tarts to the fridge to set for at least 3 hours. Top with the strawberry slices, to serve.
Looking for more naturally sweetened treats? You’ll love these healthy vegan dessert recipes.
