No-Bake Peach Rose Tart with Macadamia Crust & Almond-Butter Caramel
No oven needed: a buttery macadamia-coconut crust, a vanilla mascarpone cream, fresh peaches arranged in a rose and a warm almond-butter caramel drizzle.
Yield: one 9-inch tart (serves 8) · Active: 30 min · Total: 4 hr (mostly chilling) · Season: peaches peak July–September in North America: June–July from Georgia and South Carolina, July–August from California, and August–September from New Jersey, Michigan and Colorado’s Palisade orchards · Cuisine: French-inspired, no-bake · Best eaten: midday or early afternoon
This is the tart for the hottest weeks of summer, when the last thing you want to do is turn on the oven and the peaches are so ripe they perfume the whole kitchen. A buttery macadamia-coconut crust gets pressed into the pan and topped with a silky vanilla mascarpone cream. Then fresh, uncooked peach slices get fanned into a big rose, the same way as my Raw Caramel Apple Rose Tart, and finished with a warm almond-butter caramel just before serving. Macadamias have a natural butterscotch flavor that’s lovely with peach.
A note on peaches: a tree-ripened, in-season peach is almost a different fruit from the firm, mealy ones in supermarkets the rest of the year. Most of the aromas that make a peach taste like a peach develop in the last days of ripening on the tree, and peaches picked early for shipping never catch up. Get yours from a farmers’ market, a roadside stand or a U-pick orchard, and use them within 2–3 days. This tart only works with ripe, fragrant, in-season fruit, so save it for July through September.
Prefer a baked version with warm cinnamon peaches? See my Cinnamon Peach Tart with Vanilla Cream and Pecan Crumble.
Ingredients
Macadamia-coconut crust
1½ cups raw, unsalted macadamia nuts
1½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut
8 medjool dates, pitted
2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
½ tsp ground Ceylon cinnamon
Pinch Baja Gold sea salt
Vanilla mascarpone cream
1 cup mascarpone, at room temperature
1 cup full-fat cream cheese (raw if you can find it), at room temperature
⅓ cup raw honey or pure maple syrup
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Pinch Baja Gold sea salt
Peach rose
3–4 ripe but firm peaches (about 3 cups sliced), skin on, sliced ⅛ inch thick
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
½ tsp ground Ceylon cinnamon
Almond-butter caramel
½ cup grass-fed heavy cream
3 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp honey
½ tsp ground Ceylon cinnamon
Pinch Baja Gold sea salt
Swaps
Other stone fruit: nectarines hold their shape a little better when sliced, and apricots give a more concentrated flavor.
Dairy-free cream: blend 1½ cups cashews (soaked at least 2 hours and drained), ½ cup full-fat coconut cream, ¼ cup raw honey or maple syrup, ¼ cup melted coconut oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp vanilla and a pinch of salt until completely silky. Freeze 1 hour to set.
Dairy-free caramel: use full-fat coconut cream instead of heavy cream.
Method
Make the crust. Line a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom with parchment. Pulse the macadamias, coconut, dates, coconut oil, cinnamon and salt until sticky and holding together. Press firmly into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Freeze 15 minutes.
Make the cream. Beat or blend the mascarpone, cream cheese, honey, vanilla, lemon juice and salt until smooth and fluffy. Don’t overbeat, or mascarpone can turn grainy. Spread it into the crust and smooth the top.
Chill. Refrigerate 3–4 hours, or freeze 1 hour, until the cream is set enough to hold the peaches.
Slice the peaches. Just before assembling, slice the peaches thin and toss them with the lemon juice and cinnamon so they stay bright.
Make the rose. Starting at the outer edge, arrange the slices in overlapping concentric circles, skin-side up and slightly upright, working toward the center. Curl a few small slices tightly for the middle of the rose.
Make the caramel. Whisk the cream, almond butter, honey, cinnamon and salt in a small saucepan over low heat until smooth and warm. Let it cool a few minutes to thicken.
Serve. Drizzle the caramel over the tart just before serving, or pass it on the side. Serve chilled, with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream if you like. It’s lovely with espresso, sparkling water with a slice of peach, or a small glass of chilled rosé.
Storage: Refrigerated, covered, up to 2–3 days. The peaches release a little juice into the cream after the first day, but it still looks beautiful. The caramel keeps 1 week in the fridge and is great on yogurt, ice cream and fresh fruit.
For a crowd (12+): Double the recipe and press it into a 9×13 pan. Lay the peaches in overlapping rows instead of a rose and slice into squares.
Honey note: the honey in the cream stays raw, but the honey in the caramel isn’t raw once warmed. Honey isn’t safe for babies under 12 months.
Nourishment Notes
Macadamias are about 80% monounsaturated fat, similar to olive oil, with very little of the fragile polyunsaturated kind. That makes them stable and buttery, perfect for a crust that never sees the oven. They bring thiamine and manganese too. Choose raw and unsalted; salted macadamias overpower the delicate peach.
Coconut adds fiber and lauric acid. Medjool dates bind the crust and sweeten it with potassium, copper and fiber, which softens their sugar hit.
Peaches bring vitamin C, beta-carotene and polyphenols like chlorogenic acid. Yellow peaches carry more carotenoids, while white peaches are more floral and delicate; both work. Leave the skins on, since that’s where most of the polyphenols are.
Mascarpone, cream cheese and grass-fed cream bring the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K2. Their fat also helps you absorb the carotenoids in the peaches, which your body takes up much better with fat.
The almond-butter caramel adds protein, vitamin E and magnesium. Together with the fat in the cream filling, it slows down the sugars from the fruit and dates. Ceylon cinnamon adds warmth and polyphenols. Raw honey in the cream keeps its enzymes, since the cream is never heated.
For your cycle: in the luteal phase, a slice of this tart, with its fat, protein and magnesium from the nuts and almond butter, is a steadier way to answer sweet cravings than a sugary dessert. In the follicular and ovulatory phases, fresh summer peaches and their vitamin C fit those brighter, lighter weeks.
Sourcing
Peaches: a farmers’ market, roadside stand or U-pick orchard, at peak ripeness. They should smell like peach and give slightly when pressed near the stem.
Macadamia nuts: raw and unsalted. Hawaiian-grown if you can find them.
Coconut: unsweetened shredded, organic
Medjool dates: Bautista Family Organic Date Ranch or Joolies (Coachella Valley)
Mascarpone: a small-batch or Italian-made mascarpone with just cream and acid on the label
Cream cheese and heavy cream: grass-fed, raw from realmilk.com or a local farm if you like
Almond butter: single-ingredient (just almonds)
Honey: local raw honey
Ceylon cinnamon: true Ceylon, not cassia
Sea salt: Baja Gold
— Anna aka Food Marshall