Vegan recipe: Roasted red wine, pear and chocolate tart

Whether or not you're vegan, it's that time of year when many of us think about 'clean eating', so Somerset chef Steve James has come up with this great vegan dessert recipe to try this January

Roasted red wine, pear and chocolate tart

Ingredients

Roasted red wine pear
4 pears, peeled and halved with cores removed
Juice 1 lemon
3 cardamom pods crushed
75ml red wine
50g sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Pastry
225g plain flour
15g cocoa
75ml olive oil
½ tsp salt
4-5tbsp cold water

Chocolate ganache filling
200g dark chocolate
125g full fat coconut milk
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch flaked sea salt
A tbsp. caster sugar ( optional)

Coconut praline
100g caster sugar
2tbsp water
2tbsp desiccated coconut

Method

Preheat the oven to 220C. In a baking dish add the pears, red wine, lemon juice, cardamom pods sugar and vanilla.
Toss together and place in the oven for 15 minutes, turn over the pears and place back in the oven for another 15 minutes, the pears should have a nice red tint to them now and they should be soft but still hold their shape, remove to a plate and cool.
For the pastry, sieve the flour, cocoa and salt into a bowl. Add the olive oil and rub together to form breadcrumbs.
Add the water and bring together to make a soft ball. Don’t over mix it or the pastry will become tough.
Lightly flour your work surface and roll the dough out to fit your tin, either a 20cm round fluted tin or I used a rectangular tart tin 23cmx10cm, roll the pastry to about 3mm thick and then line your tin with the pastry.
Add parchment and baking beans to the tin and then chill for an hour.
Preheat your oven to 180c fan. Once your pastry has rested place in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove the baking beans and cook for a further 5 minutes. Allow your pastry case to cool completely
To make the ganache filling: chop your chocolate finely and place in a bowl. In a saucepan over a medium heat add your coconut milk, and sugar if using, heat until it just comes to the boil, pour over your chocolate, stir and then leave for one minute.
Stir until smooth, add your olive oil, vanilla and a good pinch of sea salt, pour into your tart case, you want it to come about half a centimetre before the top so it doesn’t spill when you add your pears, depending on the depth of your tin you may have a little left over but that IS okay, you can drizzle it over once the pears are added or warm it as a sauce to pour over when serving.
Refrigerate for 20-30 minutes until the ganache is starting to firm up. Press your pears into the ganache and then refrigerate until fully set.
Meanwhile make your coconut praline. Heat the sugar and water in a heavy based pan until deep golden. Stir in the coconut. Pour out onto some greaseproof paper and leave to go solid. When set break into small pieces using a rolling pin or chop with a knife.
When ready to serve bring your tart out from the fridge and place onto your serving plate. Cut into slices and serve with your praline scattered over.