Vegan Caramelized Pineapple Tart

Posted by Rachel

May 13, 2009

Okay. I admit it.

I am officially kind of a nerd.

Last Tuesday night was another meeting of the Austin Food Lover’s Book Club aka “My Favorite Night That I Look Forward to Every Two Months”.

Beautifully photographed by the lovely Mrs. Summer Huggins. See more of her fabulous photos on her Flickr photostream.

Every two months we read a food related book and each person brings a dish related to the book. With members like Addie from the Austin American-Statesman, Jodi from Tasty Touring, Lindsey from Apron Adventures, James from JamesEats, and other die hard foodies and writers, the food is always fantastic.

For this meeting we were discussing Michael Ruhlman’s “The Soul of a Chef”. (BTW, I thought it was a fabulous, inspiring, exciting read – especially the section on Thomas Keller – and recommend it highly to all of my foodie friends.) Ruhlman discusses so many dishes in such savory detail and I was having trouble deciding which one I wanted to prepare for the book club.

But then, I remembered that one of our dear members is vegan, and although I’m sure that the offal dishes and terrines mentioned the book are delicious, they are far from being vegan-friendly.

So, I was on the hunt.

One of the chapters in the book is about Michael Symon and his Cleveland restaurant, Lola, so I decided to look up what they were currently serving on the menu. Being in the mood to bake and seeing that it was pretty much the only thing I could veganize, I chose to create a Caramelized Pineapple Tart of my own.

Turns out, the tart was great. Everyone raved. And, how did our token vegan, like it?

She didn’t to make it to the meeting.

Another gorgeous photo by Summer Huggins

Vegan Caramelized Pineapple Tart
makes one nine inch tart

Tart Pastry:
12 oz. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 Tbs. organic unbleached confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
14 Tbs. EarthBalance Buttery Sticks, cut into 1 inch pieces
Ener-G Egg Replacer for 1 egg
a few Tbs. ice water

Filling:
2-20 oz. cans crushed pineapple, packed in juice, not syrup
3/4 cup organic evaporated cane sugar
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. Chinese Five Spice powder

more sugar, for caramelizing the top of the tart after baking

1. For the Pastry: In a food processor, quickly pulse together flour, confectioners’ sugar, baking powder, and salt. Scatter the Buttery Stick pieces over the top of the dry ingredients and pulse until there are no buttery pieces larger than a marble. With the machine running, quickly add the Egg Replacer and the ice water, 1 Tbs. at a time, until it just begins to form a cohesive dough. Remove the dough from the processor, form it into a disk, wrap it up in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour.

2. For the Filling: While the dough is chilling in the fridge, combine everything for the filling in a sauce pan and place over medium high heat. Let the mixture simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until it resembles a thick jam. You want the mixture to be thick and sticky with as little moisture as possible so as to avoid a soggy crust.

3. To Assemble: Preheat your oven to 425F degrees. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out to about 1/4-inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Press the dough into the bottom and sides of your tart pan. There will be excess dough hanging over the top. To remove this excess quickly and to make a nice even edge on the top of your tart, simply roll your rolling pin over the top of the pan and trim away the excess dough. (I put the leftover dough in freezer bag and put it in the freezer to make mini tarts later.)

4. Place a large piece of foil inside of your tart making sure that it covers the entire surface of the crust. Fill the tart with dried beans or pie weights and blind bake the crust for about 10 minutes. Take the tart shell out of the oven, remove the foil and weights, lower the oven temp to 350F degrees and spread the pineapple filling evenly inside. Bake the tart another 15 minutes. The crust will remain a pale color even when it is finished cooking, so you really need to feel the crust to tell if it is done. It should be very firm and crisp.

5. Allow the tart to cool completely in the tart pan. When it has cooled, remove it from the pan and sprinkle a light layer of sugar over the top. Using a kitchen torch, caramelize the top of the tart as if you were making a Creme Brulee. Cut into 8 wedges and enjoy!

I suspect you could also caramelized the top of the tart under the broiler although I have never tried it this way. If any of you give it a shot, let me know how it turns out.