Our best pals are in town, and I am beside-myself excited. I made a tart this morning to celebrate - my favorite tart filled with my best pal's favorite fruit.
I remember a few years ago in the LA Times food section, Russ Parsons talking about how easy it is to make frangipane (that puffy almond-y paste) in the food processor, and when I looked at the recipe I realized that it would totally work with flax-y goop in place of the egg, but it took me until now to actually try it.
It works. Beautifully.
So, here's Your Tuesday Tip:
Any vegan can tell you that 1 tablespoon flax meal + 3 tablespoons water = 1 flax egg, which works well in most baked goods - cookies and muffins and pancakes and such. If you let it sit for about 5 minutes and then whisk it up, you will see that it has created an egg-like gel that will work as a binder.
But you should also know, that if you need to replace an egg yolk, in say a sweet tart dough, you can just cut the water in half. So 1 tablespoon flax meal + 1 1/2 tablespoons water = 1 flax egg yolk.
Armed with flax eggs and vegan butter, a half dozen figs and a bag of almond meal from Trader Joe's, you have everything you need to veganify and fig-ify, Dorie Greenspan's excellent tart recipe.
