This vegan strawberry tart is a delicious spin on the traditional French dessert. Classic French strawberry tart is commonly made up of a buttery crust, crème pâtissière filling, and an arrangement of ripe shiny glazed strawberries on top.
This dairy-free version of the classic French dessert is filled with easy vegan pastry cream and uses macerated strawberries to bring out their sweetness and flavor even more.
It's similar to my vegan French raspberry tart and is the perfect summer dessert and a great way to use seasonal strawberries.
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🧾 Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
Find the complete list of ingredients, quantities, and instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Vegan Shortcrust Pastry - You'll make one batch of this vegan sweet shortcrust pastry and follow the directions for blind baking the tart dough. This tart crust is a simple recipe that involves mixing a few simple ingredients in a food processor, chilling for a bit, then using a rolling pin to shape and add to the tart pan.
- Vegan Pastry Cream - For a 2" thick tart pan, you'll need 1 ½ batches of pastry cream. If your pan is more shallow, one batch of pastry cream will work. Rather than using egg yolks and dairy products, this pastry custard cream is made vegan with plant milk, vegan butter, and a delicious vanilla pod.
- Fresh Ripe Strawberries - Since the strawberries are one of the main components, make sure you go for good quality, red and juicy strawberries - preferably during strawberry season. We will be macerating them in sugar which enhances their flavor and sweetness. But since the emphasis of this strawberry tart is on those fresh berries, it always helps to start off with the best quality produce you can find.
- Granulated Sugar - Some white sugar in the US is not vegan, if in doubt use organic sugar.
- Strawberry Preserves - The jam glazes the strawberries and gives them a beautiful sheen. You can also use strawberry jam, apricot jam/preserves or other light-flavored preserves or jellies such as apple jelly depending on what's convenient for you.
🔪 Instructions
Prep Ahead
For this recipe, we will use a vegan shortcrust pastry and a vegan pastry cream. Once these are prepped and ready to go, this tarte aux fraises comes together quickly and easily. Here are some tips on preparing those ahead:
- You can prepare your shortcrust pastry dough up to two days in advance and store in the refrigerator, or freeze the dough for up to two months. The full recipe instructions and steps can be found in the recipe card of the shortcrust pastry recipe post
- You can prepare your pastry cream up to 3 days in advance. Just store in the refrigerator until it’s time to put the tart together. The full recipe instructions and steps can be found in the recipe card of the vegan pastry cream recipe post.
Once the filling and crust are prepped, the following step-by-step images show how to make the best tarte aux fraises.
Remember, the detailed printable recipe card is at the end of this page:
Step 1: Macerate the berries: Wash, hull, and half the strawberries. Place them in a mixing bowl with the sugar and toss them well. Cover and allow them to sit and macerate for 30 minutes.
Add the strawberry preserves to a small saucepan and place on medium heat. Stir continuously, the jam should thin out and become glossy. Brush the base and sides of the cooled pastry case with the jam.
Step 2: Fill the tart: Give the pastry cream a good whisk and add it to the tart shell. Smooth out the top with an offset spatula.
Step 3: Decorate: Neatly arrange the macerated strawberries on top, starting from the center and working your way outwards in a circle. Place the tart in the fridge for 1-2 hours to let the pastry cream firm back up.
Step 4: Glaze: Before serving, use a pastry brush to glaze the strawberries with the strawberry reserve mixture.
💭 Expert Tips
How to avoid a soggy pie crust: Blind baking is an important step when you're adding an unbaked filling. Blind baking involves baking the crust with weighted parchment paper until it is half-baked. The weights are then removed and the crust is baked further until cooked.
Cool the pastry before assembling the tart: The pastry cream filling is essentially custard which means that it will melt when exposed to heat. So make sure that you wait until the pastry shell has cooled down completely before adding the filling.
📖 Variations
- Different Fruit - You can use any other berries such as raspberries, blueberries, or blackberries. Or go for a selection of different fruits like in my vegan fruit tart.
- Gluten-Free - If you need a gluten free tart crust, you can swap out the plain flour for a gluten-free flour blend at a 1:1 ratio to make this vegan strawberry tart gluten-free.
- Small Tarts - If you don't want to make one large tart, you can make this tarte aux fraises into individual tarts. Individual tartlets make a great dessert at dinner parties or during the holidays. Just divide the dough into individual tart pans before blind baking and dividing the remaining ingredients into the small tarts.
- Strawberries - I prefer to use halved strawberries for this tart, but you can use strawberry slices if you prefer.
💬 FAQs
Store covered with plastic wrap or in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. I recommend serving it on the same day it's made for the best results. It should not be frozen or kept at room temperature.
Unfortunately, this recipe cannot be frozen for several reasons. The first is that pastry cream does not freeze well. And secondly, defrosted strawberries tend to turn mushy.
Absolutely. There are several ways in which you prepare ahead, I would recommend getting the shortcrust pastry ready in advance if you're looking to save some time. You can either make and freeze the shortcrust dough until ready to use, or go ahead and blind bake and refrigerate the tart shell the day before preparing the rest of the tart.
The pastry cream should be made no more than a day ahead of serving. And the strawberry top on the day of serving, or the day before at a push!
🍓 More Vegan Strawberry Desserts
*This recipe was originally published in May 2022. The recipe has since been improved with simplified and updated.
📖 Recipe
Description
Ingredients
- 1 batch vegan shortcrust pastry
- 1 ½ batches vegan pastry cream, *see note 1
- 500 g (3 ½ cups) fresh strawberries
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 60 g (3 tablespoons) strawberry preserves, or strawberry jam/apricot preserves
Instructions
- Macerate the berries: Wash, hull, and half the strawberries. Place them in a bowl with the sugar and toss them well. Cover and allow them to sit and macerate for 30 minutes.
- Jam glaze: Add the strawberry preserves to a small saucepan and place on medium heat. Stir continuously, the jam should thin out and become glossy. Brush the base and sides of the cooled pastry shell with the jam.Drain the juices from the macerated strawberries and mix with the leftover strawberry reserves. Set this aside for glazing the tart later.
- Fill the tart: Give the pastry cream a good whisk and add it to the tart shell. Smooth out the top with an offset spatula.
- Neatly arrange the macerated strawberries on top, starting from the center and working your way outwards in a circle. Place the tart in the fridge for 1-2 hours to let the pastry cream firm back up.
- Glaze: Before serving, use a pastry brush to glaze the strawberries with the strawberry reserve mixture.
- Storage: This tart will keep covered with plastic wrap or in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. I recommend serving it on the same day it's made for the best results. It should not be frozen.
Notes
- Pastry Cream: I use a 9-inch tin that is 2 inches (5.5cm) deep and this takes 1.5 batches of homemade pastry cream. If you have a shallow tin, 1 batch will be enough.
Nutrition
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