Each week while our campuses are closed as a result of COVID-19 orders, we host a voluntary virtual market basket challenge for students and alumni. This week, the must-use ingredient was nut butter, and Natasha Brunetti of @plant.to.table shares how she developed the winning dish.
When I saw the market basket ingredients, including miso, dates and nut butter, I was immediately inspired to make a sweet and salty dessert. My husband (Mr. B) has a sweet tooth and I have a salty one (they say opposites attract), so I am always playing around with that flavor profile in order to make dishes we can eat together.
I took a raw desserts class a few years ago so I also wanted to challenge myself to make the whole dessert raw. The term raw tends to intimidate people and I wanted to show the accessibility and ease of it. I like incorporating raw techniques from time to time (as I write a that maximizes nutritional density without compromising on taste) showing how you can literally have your cake and eat it too. For the base, the dominant ingredients were walnuts, cashew nuts, oats and peanut butter, with a little maple syrup, which was the beginning of the sweet-salty journey. I then layered on bananas and a caramel that included the focus ingredients dates and miso, as well as reinforcing the sweet-salty theme. Lastly, I had a hazelnut almond nut butter that I bought as a treat for Mr. B but was a little on the salty side for him, and so I thought tofu would be a good addition to mellow it out and create more of a mousse-type texture.
I topped it off with shapes I made with the leftover pastry, birds as an ode to Earth Day and the beautiful nature we are seeing back all over the world and in NYC. #silverlinings
No-Bake Sweet-Salty Chocolate Tart
Yields 4 small tarts (4-inch rounds) or one large tart (9-inch round)
Ingredients
For the base:
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1/2 cup cashews
- 1/2 cup oat flour
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 tablespoon psyllium husk
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
For the middle:
- 1/2 ripe banana
- 1 cup soft dates
- 1/3 cup almond milk or coconut milk
- 1 tablespoon sweet miso paste
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 cup agave
For the top layer:
- 1/2 cup Justin's chocolate hazelnut and almond butter
- 200 grams tofu cream cheese
Directions
- Add the walnuts and cashews to a blender and blend to form a crumb (don鈥檛 go further than this or you will make a nut butter).
- Add the oat flour (if you don鈥檛 have this make your own blending oats and sifting them).
- Add the rest of the ingredients and blend till it comes together in a ball.
- Place it between two pieces of parchment paper and roll out to 1/4-inch thick, line the tart base(s) and leave to dehydrate for 10 hours or until the pastry is set. If you don鈥檛 have a dehydrator use the lowest setting of your oven.
- Slice the bananas to 1/4-inch thickness and layer the bottom of the dehydrated pastry.
- To make the caramel, simply blend all the ingredients and layer on top of the bananas. The recipe will make more than you need so save the extra caramel to dip apples into or pour onto pancakes.
- For the topping, mix the nut butter and tofu cream cheese (if you can鈥檛 find this then just drain and blend some soft tofu) until well combined and place over the top, smoothing the mixture out with a palette knife or the back of a spoon.
- Top with shapes made out of any leftover pastry.
Follow on Instagram to see more market basket challenge entries.
