White currant tarte - Weiße Johannisbeeren Tarte

This tarte will certainly look much nicer with red currants but "my" two favourite and most charming elderly market ladies only had white currants the other day...I was immediately reminded of my childhood when my grandmother would grow all kinds of currants and I still remember how fascinated I was - and put off at the same time - by their flowery, tangy and extremely sour taste.

For the short crust

200 g flour (I used spelt flour, German Dinkel, quite similar to farro)

100 g vegan margarine

5 Tbs. sugar

1 Tbs. soya flour mixed with 2-3 Tbs. water

1 pinch of salt

For the vanilla cream (custard)

400 ml soya milk

5 Tbs. semolina

1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp. vanilla

5 Tbs. sugar

¼ tsp. cinnamon

400 ml soya yoghurt

1 g saffron (optional)

peel of one lemon

For the white currant sauce

300 g white currants

2-3 Tbs. sugar

1 tsp. agar agar

Knead the ingredients for the short crust, form a ball and put it in the fridge for one hour.

In the meantime, cook the soya milk and stir in the semolina. Cook for 5 minutes and add vanilla, sugar and cinnamon. 

When I tried this, the cream turned out to be rather thick I added soya yoghurt – and I quite liked the sour taste. Maybe the lemon peel is overdoing things a little bit on the sour side but I find it yummy.

I disliked the muddy grey colour, so put some saffron to make it look a little yellowish.

Then cook the white currants with the sugar and add agar agar. Boil for 2 minutes and set aside to cool.

Roll out the crust very thinly and blind-bake for 20 min at 200° C with some dry beans or other pulses. Turn off the oven, take off the beans and let the crust sit in the oven for some 5-8 min.

Take out the crust and let it cool down. Then put the custard and the white currant sauce on top and put the tarte in the fridge for at least one hour.