Anna's Raw Strawberry Tart with Vanilla Cacao Custard
A summer dessert for the season when the fruit asks for almost nothing.
Yield: One 9-inch tart, serves 8–10 · Active: 30 min · Total: 5 hours, including chilling · Best in North America in late spring and early summer, when local strawberries peak · Best eaten: afternoon
Ingredients
Walnut-date-coconut crust
1½ cups walnuts, ideally sprouted
10 Medjool dates, pitted
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
¼ tsp Baja Gold sea salt
1 tbsp coconut oil, melted (only if the mixture feels dry)
Vanilla cacao custard (plant-based)
1½ cups cashews, soaked 4+ hours and drained
¾ cup full-fat coconut milk (or coconut cream, for a richer custard)
⅓ cup food-grade cacao butter, melted
⅓ cup maple syrup (or raw honey)
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean (or 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
¼ tsp Baja Gold sea salt
Raw dairy variation: Replace the cashews, coconut milk, and cacao butter with 1¼ cups raw, grass-fed A2/A2 heavy cream, 4 oz grass-fed mascarpone or crème fraîche, and 1 tbsp grass-fed gelatin, bloomed in 2 tbsp cold water and gently melted. Whisk the cream and mascarpone together first, then fold in the warm gelatin, maple syrup, vanilla, lemon juice, and salt. The flavor is rounder and richer, and just as ancestral.
Fresh strawberry sauce
1½ cups strawberries, hulled and roughly chopped
2 tbsp maple syrup (or raw honey)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
Pinch of Baja Gold sea salt
Strawberry spiral topping
2 cups strawberries, hulled and thinly sliced (about ⅛ inch)
Optional: 1 tsp maple syrup, for shine
A small handful of fresh mint leaves
About the fruit: This dessert lives and dies by the quality of the strawberries. A pale, mealy, out-of-season strawberry will make a pale, mealy tart, and no amount of craft in the crust or filling will rescue it. Wait for peak local strawberries, dark red to the hull.
Method
Soak the cashews. Cover them with cool filtered water and soak 4–6 hours, or overnight in the fridge, then drain. Soaking softens them for the silkiest custard and helps reduce phytic acid. A 1-hour hot-water soak works in a pinch, but a cold soak gives the smoothest result.
Make the crust. Pulse the walnuts in a food processor to a coarse meal, keeping some texture. Add the dates, coconut, and salt, and pulse until the mixture holds together when pinched, adding the melted coconut oil if it's dry. Press it firmly and evenly into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, about ¾ inch up the sides. Freeze it while you make the filling.
Make the custard. Melt the cacao butter gently, in a small pan over the lowest heat or in a glass bowl set over barely simmering water. In a high-speed blender, blend the cashews, coconut milk, melted cacao butter, maple syrup, vanilla, lemon juice, and salt on high for 2–3 minutes, scraping down the sides, until completely silky. Taste and adjust: a drop more lemon if it feels heavy, or a pinch more salt to wake it up.
Fill and chill. Pour the custard into the chilled crust, smooth the top, and tap the pan gently to release air bubbles. Refrigerate uncovered at least 4 hours, ideally overnight, until it's firm enough to slice cleanly.
Make the sauce. Pulse the chopped strawberries, maple syrup, lemon juice, and salt in a small blender or food processor until glossy, with a few small chunks of fruit left. Refrigerate until serving.
Make the strawberry spiral. This is the step that turns the tart from lovely to striking. Slice the strawberries thin and even, about ⅛ inch, from stem to tip, so each slice is a narrow oval. Starting at the outer edge of the custard, lay the slices in a spiral, slightly overlapping like shingles, working toward the center in tighter and tighter circles, and finish with a single rolled slice standing in the middle, like a rosebud. It takes about 10 minutes of quiet, meditative work. Brush the top with maple syrup for shine, if you like.
Serve. Push the tart up and out of the pan, and scatter torn mint over the top. Slice it with a warm, dry knife (run it under hot water, and dry it between cuts), and serve each slice with a spoonful of strawberry sauce.
A note on "raw": Every cashew sold has been heat-treated to remove the caustic oil in its shell, so "raw" here means no-bake.
Storage
The assembled tart is best the day it's finished, and keeps refrigerated up to 1–2 days. The crust and custard can be made and chilled up to 24 hours ahead, and the sauce keeps up to 3 days. Add the strawberry spiral within a few hours of serving, since sliced strawberries weep and the spiral loses its shape. Freezing isn't recommended, since the strawberries don't survive thawing.
Nourishment Notes
Strawberries are the hero, and they earn it. Ripe, in-season strawberries have more vitamin C by weight than oranges; one cup provides about a day's worth. They're rich in anthocyanins (the deep red pigments behind their color, studied for their antioxidant and cardiovascular benefits), ellagic acid (a polyphenol also found in pomegranates and walnuts), and pectin, a soluble fiber that feeds beneficial gut bacteria. And their glycemic load is remarkably low for such a sweet fruit. Strawberries consistently rank near the top of the Environmental Working Group's list of most pesticide-contaminated produce, so organic sourcing matters more here than with most fruits. They're also the first true summer fruit in most temperate climates, ripening as the days grow longest, and eating them at their peak is one of the simplest ways to eat with the light.
Cashews are an unusual nut. Strictly speaking, they're a seed, hanging from the underside of the cashew apple. They're rich in magnesium, copper, and zinc, and soaked, blended, and combined with fat, they make the silkiest plant-based cream there is.
Cacao butter is the ingredient most readers won't have used before, and it deserves a proper introduction. It's the pale yellow fat pressed from the cacao bean, the same bean that gives us raw cacao powder. The powder carries the bean's polyphenols and fiber, and the butter carries its fats: mostly saturated, with about a third oleic acid (the same monounsaturated fat in olive oil). It melts just below body temperature, which is why real chocolate melts the instant it touches your tongue, and it's one of the most stable natural fats, resisting oxidation remarkably well. In Mesoamerica, cacao was prized as a nourishing food and ceremonial drink for thousands of years.
Walnuts bring alpha-linolenic acid (a plant-based omega-3), magnesium, copper, manganese, and the same ellagic acid found in strawberries. In traditional Chinese medicine, walnuts are considered nourishing and tonifying for the kidneys.
I want to address the question I can feel arriving: those who have read my other posts will notice I almost always build around raw, grass-fed, A2/A2 dairy. You may be surprised to find a dessert with no dairy at all. Ancestral cooking isn't an ideology that requires dairy in every dish. It's a practice of asking what the season and the ingredients are calling for, and responding honestly. In my kitchen, spring and fall tend to lead with raw cream and grass-fed butter: the animals are producing beautifully, and the body is reaching for density and warmth. Summer is different. Summer is when the plant kingdom is at its most abundant, when the body wants lightness and coolness, and when the best dessert can truly be built from fruit, nuts, and seeds.
As a circadian and seasonal food, this tart belongs to the afternoon, while there's still light on the table. Fruit-forward desserts are best enjoyed during the day, when your body handles natural sugars most gracefully. A late-afternoon slice with peppermint tea is ideal.
For your cycle: The strawberries' vitamin C and the nuts' magnesium make this light, bright tart especially lovely in the follicular and ovulatory phases.
Sourcing
Strawberries — organic, local, and in season, dark red to the hull
Walnuts — organic, ideally sprouted, kept in the fridge
Cashews — organic (every cashew sold has been heat-treated, even "raw" ones)
Medjool dates — organic, soft, and plump
Shredded coconut — organic, unsweetened, and sulfite-free
Coconut milk and cream — organic and full-fat, made with just coconut and water, with no guar gum (Native Forest Simple comes in BPA-free cans)
Cacao butter — organic, food-grade, raw cacao butter
Coconut oil — organic, virgin, and unrefined
Maple syrup and raw honey — organic Grade A dark maple syrup; organic, local, unfiltered raw honey
Vanilla — organic vanilla beans or pure vanilla extract
Lemons and mint — organic
Raw dairy variation — raw A2/A2 cream from a farmer you know and trust; grass-fed mascarpone or crème fraîche; grass-fed gelatin
Salt — Baja Gold sea salt
— Anna aka Food Marshall