Goji Berry Tart with Nutella and Spelt Crust

May you eat an unfamiliar dessert in a strange land at least once every three years.
May you wake up... and start dancing while you're still half-asleep.
May you spray-paint Rilke poems as graffiti on highway overpasses...
May you learn to identify by name 20 flowers, 15 trees, 10 clouds, and one extrasolar planet...
May you dream of taking a trip to the moon in a gondola powered by firecrackers and wild swans.

Rob Brezsny

 

Okay, for my very first recipe of the year, I turned to dessert which is my favorite course, of course! I wanted to bake with an unusual ingredient (for me, at least) and that is goji berries. They're commonly available everywhere now, especially in health stores, so why did I say they were unusual? Well, I haven't come across many desserts that have incorporated their flavors fully, they are usually just sprinkled onto/into the dish. That's something that begs to be rectified and I want to do it here, today.

Anyway, have you ever had goji berry custard tarts before? I mean, actual goji berries (or less benignly known as wolfberries) blended into a custard and hiding underneath it a pleasant dollop of Nutella? And what would you think if all that pink custard was contained in a crust made from spelt flour? Because that's exactly what I made.

 I love that you can still spot the husks in the spelt flour!

A few years back, the benefits of goji berries were impressed upon us when they were commercially touted as a superfood. As a premium health drink, goji is an expensive investment towards a superfunctioning body, however nowadays I see the dried berries being sold at supermarkets everywhere at reasonable prices. We normally consume them as a crunchy snack (better than a bag of crisps, hey!) or else we brew them in soups or as hot drinks.

In fact, goji berries have been used for 6,000 years by herbalists in China, Tibet and India to promote everything from circulation to longevity. There’s even an unsupported marketing claim that a man in China who consumed goji berries daily had lived to be 252 years old. Firstly, unless you want to be Rob Pattinson’s eternal squeeze (wolfberry, hello), who really wants to live that long? And secondly, the addition of Nutella to this recipe will quickly whittle away 200 out of that 252 years… so much for longevity!

As for the crust, I've seen a few baking recipes floating around that use spelt flour. Spelt apparently contains more protein than wheat, and the protein in spelt is easier to digest. Always one for helping my body along, I was curious to give it a try. While aisle-surfing at the supermarket the other day, I'd spotted spelt flour on the shelves, so of course I grabbed a bag to take home.

This spelt crust certainly lived up to my expectations, which doesn't mean anything considering I had none to begin with. It was nutty in flavor and the spelt provided a cookie like quality, crisp-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside, to the crust which I found simply delightful. It’s a surprisingly apt companion to the subtly sweet, tarty (somewhere between a cherry and a cranberry), unusual taste of goji. To be completely honest, you can omit the Nutella because its distinctive flavor is a distraction from the goji. But I wanted to include Nutella this time because let's face it, having Nutella around (in anything, even just sitting quietly in its jar!) makes the heart beat faster... Don't you think?

 

Okay, here's my overall verdict on the tart:

Spelt crust - thumbs up, nutty and super-scrumptious!

Goji custard filling - love the pinkish-turned-terracotta color after baking, and the fact that you can still taste the tartness of the berries amidst the swirl of vanilla and custard. The goji as a garnish provided a refreshing pop as you bite into the tart.

Nutella - hmm.. nommm... I'm sure there's a Nutella heaven out there somewhere!

By the way, if you didn't already know, I have a giveaway going on here. The closing date for entries is tomorrow, 5 January, so do check it out if you're at all interested.

Goji Berry Tart with Nutella and Spelt Crust

Makes six 3-inch tarts

Ingredients:

Spelt Crust

300g wholemeal spelt flour (stoneground)

125g cold butter, chopped into cubes

100g caster sugar

1 egg

Goji Custard Filling

1/2 cup dried goji berries, soaked in water for 20 mins

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1teaspoon vanilla extract

6 tablespoons Nutella

Method:

1. Make the crust first: in a bowl, rub the cold butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, then stir in the sugar. Make a well in the center of the mixture, add egg and gently knead the flour into a pastry ball. Spelt flour is very sticky to work with, so if you find the dough too sticky after adding the egg, just sprinkle extra spelt flour over the flour until it no longer sticks to your hands. Be careful not to overwork the dough. (At this point, you can

2. Preheat oven to 200C. Divide dough into 6 balls, take one and press onto the base and sides of a 3-inch tart pan (1-in deep) to form the crust. Repeat with the rest of the dough balls. Prick the base of the crust with a fork several times to release hot air while baking.

3. Place tart pans in the oven and immediately turn oven temperature down to 175C. Bake for 15 minutes.

4. In the meantime, prepare the filling. Drain the soaked goji berries, take about 1/2 cup of these and place in the blender with milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla. Leave some berries for garnishing (after soaking, the berries will expand and you'll have more than 1/2 cup). Process until thoroughly blended. Drain the mixture into a bowl using a fine sieve. This removes the goji seeds.

5. After 15 minutes, remove the semi-cooked spelt crust from the oven. Spoon a tablespoonful of Nutella into each crust (you can flatten the dollop slightly with your spoon). Then carefully pour the goji custard into the crust, filling it until just below the rim of the crust. Sprinkle some goji berries on top, they will sink slightly during baking. You can also garnish tarts with the soaked berries after baking, this looks more attractive but doesn't alter the taste in any way.

6. Bake for 25-30 minutes until custard is just set. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a rack for about 10 minutes. Turn tarts out of pans and garnish with soaked goji berries, if you wish.