Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween: The Klaus Nomi Lime Tart

How fitting to end my Vegan Mofo with a subpar food photo. But the inspiration was magnificent.

Halloween has long been my favorite holiday. I love the costumes, the jack-o-lanterns, the freedom (once upon my childhood) of traipsing around to strange doors for candy. It is a strange holiday. I wanted to come up with something fun for my Mofo Halloween but was lacking in ideas. I made the oatmeal cream pie cookies from the Sunny Days in Texas zine for my post over at Vegans on the Move.  But inspiration was failing me here.

In some odd sequence of events I had posted my vinegar pie recipe around the same time I posted  a Klaus Nomi video on my Facebookery page as the soundtrack to some cookie baking. Which led to a discussion with the wonderful Johnp over at I-40 Vegan about Klaus being a pastry chef and making tarts back in the day. And what with my successful vinegar pie, why not attempt to veganize the Klaus Nomi lime tart?


Nomi epitomizes what I love about Halloween, a combination of the strange and beautiful. So I got my lime on and tarted it up.

You will need
1 1/4 c graham crumbs
1/3 c brown sugar
1/4 c melted margarine

Mix all together and press into a 9 inch pie plate or tart pan. I went with only 2 T of sugar so my crust wouldn't be too sweet.

4 eggs (I used a combo of soy yogurt and clear jel)
1 can sweetened condensed milk (I made my own using this recipe.)
1/2 c lime juice
some lime zest

What with all the egg separating and whipping that went on in this recipe, I decided to just hope for an edible tart like pie. I mixed the condensed milk with 1/2 c vanilla soy yogurt, the lime juice and zest. I then used 2T instant clear jel and sprinkled it in and mixed like mad. Clear jel is usually added to sugar or other dry ingredient to keep it form clumping, so I added it slowly over about 20 minutes.
Then I poured into the crust and refrigerated.

The result? Mostly good. My crust was a bit crumbly but the filling maintained its shape for the most part and was quite tasty.  But the real beauty was simply in the idea to do something ridiculous.
Happy Halloween and Happy Mofo kids!



3 comments:

JohnP said...

I can't imagine anything better for Halloween than a Nomi Tart!

vegan.in.brighton said...

I love lime in a pie & yours looks great! I'm also a huge lover of halloween, my house is full of pumpkins and I have my fingers crossed for trick or treaters!

jessy said...

happy halloween (it really & truly is a strange holiday and that's why i love it the most!) and happy last day of MoFo to ya, Panda! :D you've been working your buns off this MoFo and i wanted to tell you that 'cha rock the most socks, fo 'sho!