Cooking With Dia

Louise, author of the blog Months of Edible Celebrations, is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met online in the cooking blog world. Each year her blog hosts a virtual summer picnic. You may have noticed I’ve played this before back in 2009, and I can’t believe it has been 3 years since I’ve last participated in this! Each blogger that takes part picks a letter and makes a dish that starts with that letter. In my case I chose the letter S because I’ve been wanting to make a strawberry tart of some sort. So here it is…

I’m going on a picnic, and I’m bringing a Strawberry & Kiwi Chocolate Tart that happens to be both gluten free and vegan …

I decided to make a strawberry and kiwi chocolate tart with a chocolate shortcrust. You’ve probably at some point combined strawberries and kiwi fruit, but perhaps you’ve never tasted kiwi fruit with chocolate. If you haven’t, now’s your chance–it’s a great combination!

The mere thought of making pastry from scratch is a bit of a nightmare, but shortcrust pastry takes only minutes to prep. Of course when one is making a gluten free and vegan pastry it can seem daunting the first time, but I find this is a really simple recipe to follow.

For the Pastry:

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Gluten Free & Vegan Chocolate Shortcrust Pastry

Ingredients

6 oz of rice flour

2 oz of potato starch

1/2 cup of gluten free vegetable shortening

2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tablespoon of unrefined caster sugar

pinch of salt

2 to 3 tablespoons of cold tap water

Instructions

Use a food processor to quickly make this pastry.

Combine the flour, starch and shortening in the processor and mix on a low speed for a minute.

Add in the cocoa powder, sugar, salt and a little bit of the water and mix again on a low speed until you see it start to clump up.

Slowly add in the rest of the water, give or take a drop, until it forms a nice dough ball.

Wrap the ball in cling film and let rest in the fridge for about 20 minutes before taking out to roll.

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For the entire tart:

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Strawberry & Kiwi Chocolate Tart (Gluten Free, Vegan)

Ingredients

1 ball of the gluten free and vegan chocolate shortcrust pastry (recipe listed above)

1 cup of coconut cream

200 grams of dark cooking chocolate chopped

1/2 cup of unrefined caster sugar

pinch of salt

handful of strawberries sliced in half

1 kiwi fruit peeled and sliced

Instructions

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Preheat the oven to 356 degrees F (180 degrees C)

For this recipe only the pastry is baked.

Roll out the dough so that it's approx 1/2cm thick.

Use the pastry baking dish of your choice, there is enough dough for an 8 inch wide round pie dish.

Place the pastry in the dish and bake for 20 minutes.

Once baked allow to cool completely before filling.

Meanwhile melt the chocolate whichever way you are most comfortable with.

Once the chocolate is melted add in the sugar and whisk until it dissolves.

Fold in the coconut cream and whisk until there are no lumps and the consistency is smooth.

Fill the pastry shell with the chocolate cream mix, and top with the sliced strawberries and kiwi fruit.

Leave to set in the fridge for at least 3 hours (overnight works best to avoid checking every hour).

Slice and serve!

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© Cooking With Dia 2012

Check out other blogs contributing to the online picnic game (all of the letters will be added, so watch this space…):

A- Artichokes Steamed and Dressed with Mayonnaise
B- Baked Beans
C- Cauliflower Tabbouleh
D- Dunkin’ Donuts ~ With Maple syrup & Honey Frosting
E- Eggplant Casserole
F- Frosty Summer Salad with Cranberry, Pineapple & Beets
J- Jubilee Sandwich
K- Key Lime and Ambarella Juice
L- Limoncello Pine Nut Biscotti
M- Mini Meringue Kisses
N- Nougat Brownies
O- Ozark Pudding
P- Paletas de Chabacano y Manzanille (Apricot-Chamomile Popsicles)
Q- Quinoa Salad
S- This blog post
U- Udon salad with honey sesame lime dressing (The Picnic Game)