With the holiday season upon us, it’s all about entertaining with delicious, impressive dishes. We’ve partnered with Sarah Forte of Sprouted Kitchen to bring you recipes, ideas, and tips inspired by the season.
For people who have a sweet tooth but are interested in making desserts more wholesome, an easy strategy is to substitute healthier ingredients—like using nut meals instead of flour, coconut oil for butter, and dates for sugar—whenever possible. In this recipe, the base resembles a granola cookie, or broken-down granola—it’s crunchy from the nuts and just barely sweet. Add the crystallized ginger for an extra bit of spice, though the crust works perfectly fine without it.
At family holidays, many people load up with the meal and are so full by dessert that they pass on it altogether, or only want the tiniest bite—leaving plenty of leftovers. By making the classic pumpkin pie a little more virtuous, you don’t have to feel guilty about having a sliver with coffee at breakfast the next morning.
If you want to keep the entire dessert dairy-free (the crust and filling already are), then top it with the whipped coconut cream below. As an alternative, the maple whipping cream is a more standard cream, but does contain dairy.
To help keep the whipped cream from falling, add a couple tablespoons of mascarpone, an Italian cream cheese, to help stabilize it. This way if it needs to be transported or made in advance, the topping will stay nice until after dinner if stored in the fridge. The tart can be made in a fluted tart pan with a removable bottom or in a springform pan.