Experimenting with Produce - Taro Tarts

Ever since I first googled what to do with taro and saw a bunch of tarts made from it, I knew at some point I was going to give that a go. So when I saw some taro for sale at the Nanna Shop, I bought a couple. One I made into the sauce for the vege meatballs, the other I reserved for making pies. Or  tarts. I’m not sure of the difference in terms of semantics, but I know calling them Taro Tarts tickles my fancy more than Taro Pies.

At it’s heart, this is a pumpkin pie, but made with taro puree instead of pumpkin. I kept the flavours simple, to see how the taro takes on being a dessert and I think that was a good move. It’s a subtle flavour, but quite unique. Whilst experimenting, I also used agave sugar. This sugar is very sweet, but in an almost floral way. The texture is like icing sugar, which would be a suitable substitute in the recipe.This is also a dairy-free pie (no cream), which means the taro puffs up and develops a fluffy, almost bread-like texture. The spring roll wrappers for pastry mean these tarts are best eaten the day they’re made, while the pastry is crisp. It goes chewy if you leave them.

Taro is a traditional Hawaiian tuber, I’m using Mexican sugar and Brazil nuts. So whilst this multinational tart sounds a bit geographically confused, they all get along!

Taro Tarts

1 ½ cups taro puree

3 large eggs

¾ cup agave sugar

½ tsp freshly grated ginger

12 Brazil nuts

12 spring roll wrappers

¼ cup coconut oil.

Preheat your oven to 170C

Melt the coconut oil until it’s a liquid. Take a spring roll wrapper and brush generously with coconut oil. Fold in half to make a rectangle. Brush again with coconut oil and fold in half again to make a square. Push into a muffin tin, folding the sides to make a pastry base. Repeat for all the muffin holes.

Blend the taro puree, eggs, agave sugar and ginger until smooth. Carefully pour the taro mixture into each of the bases. Gently tap the tin to remove air bubbles. Top each one with a Brazil nut.

Slide into the oven and bake for 25 minutes, checking for doneness at around 20mins. When the pastry is crisp and gold, and the filling has puffed up and set, they are ready. Allow 15 minutes to cool before eating. Or eat at room temperature. Best eaten the same day as the pastry goes chewy.