Social Kitchen

Yogurt.  I love everything about it.  Frozen, fresh, vanilla, plain, fruit on the bottom, soft serve, the kind that looks like ice cream, fat free, full fat, cream top (oh!  the cream top!), it’s all the best in my book.  So when there was a slight grocery shopping communication issue, and we ended up with four full size cartons of yogurt in our fridge, I was not upset.

In fact, I was thrilled.  This not only made it easier to up my daily servings of yogurt to three, but also gave me a chance to play around with incorporating yogurt into my baked goods.  Specifically, a tart.  Not a pie.  Too late for berry pies but too early for apple and pumpkin, September happens to be a pie-less month.  But a tart!  A tart is the best of all dessert worlds and is, by far, the best lead-in to the upcoming pie-heavy season.

I found the perfect recipe, and with some tweaking with the ingredients I had on hand, I had a winner.  A cheesecake-like dessert with the sweet tang of lemon and ginger scented yogurt all wonderfully tucked in a buttery crust.  And because yogurt is available all year-round, it’s great at any time!  Who wouldn’t want that?

Yogurt Tart (adapted from 101 Cookbooks)

This tart is like a cheesecake.  But keep in mind, a very thin cheesecake.  But because of this similar consistency, I would support, in fact, encourage, a graham cracker crust.  Or maybe even crushing up some gingersnaps!  Think about it.

1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
scant 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
6 tbsp. butter
2 tablespoons agave nectar or maple syrup
2 tablespoons natural cane sugar (optional)
1.5 teaspoons orange marmalade

1 cup plain yogurt (I used a combination of low-fat Greek yogurt and whole milk regular yogurt)
1/4 cup agave nectar or maple syrup
zest of one lemon
1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, grated on a microplane, juice and all
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Preheat oven to 350F degrees, rack in the middle. In a medium bowl combine the flour, oats, and salt. In a medium saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the agave nectar and sugar. Now add the flour and oat mixture to the butter and stir well. Cook a couple minutes – just until you get a bit of a toasted smell.  Press the mixture into (and up the sides) of the tart pan using your fingers and/or the base of a glass. Freeze until completely cooled – 5 or 10 minutes.

In the meantime, to make the filling, combine the yogurt, agave nectar, lemon zest and ginger juice in a medium mixing bowl. Taste.  Stir in the cornstarch until well incorporated.

Spread the orange marmalade onto the prepared crust.  Fill the tart shell with the yogurt mixture.  Bake for about 35-40 minutes. The filling should be set, and no longer jiggly.  Remove the tart and let cool for ten minutes.  Refrigerate for a couple hours.  Serve topped with chopped crystallized ginger, fresh fruit, or dried fruit.  Or a fruit sauce.  Or a warmed up lemon curd. Which, I suppose is essentially a fruit sauce.  But really, you have many possibilities.

This entry was posted on September 23, 2010 at 3:19 pm and is filed under pies and tarts, sweet, Uncategorized.