VEGAN Potato Rose Tart – gorgeous potato roses baked in a savory coconut milk custard with onions & peppers in a crispy pastry crust!

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by The Idaho Potato Commission. All opinions, as always, are my own. Thank you for supporting brands that support Love is in my tummy.

I must confess, lately I’ve been quite obsessed with crafting roses from produce. It started with these Apple roses for the Crumb Cake I baked last Fall, and it got me thinking about how Potatoes are called “pommes de terre” in French, meaning “apples of the Earth”. Beautiful, isn’t it, the French language? 

Crafting the roses is a little more time consuming, yes, but it does make the finished dish, even a very simple tart like this look extra special. So for occasions that call for a little exuberance, I would highly recommend putting in a little extra time and effort to create something that when you bring it out to the table, evokes a spontaneous ‘gasp’ from the diners.

These potato roses became the highlight of this VEGAN Potato Rose Tart – with a coconut milk custard filling (dairy-free, egg-free) seasoned with onions and peppers in a crisp, buttery (sans any dairy) pastry base. 

Where I would have simply added chopped potatoes to this tart, in rose form, it elevates the dish from a simple brunch thing to a centerpiece around which you gather.

Making the Potato Roses

Choice of potato: I chose to use medium sized Idaho® Russet potatoes in this recipe for its superior taste and texture, but feel free to use whatever type of potatoes you have on hand, provided they are small-to-medium in size. Too large and the roses start to look too ‘tall’, whereas you want them to be short and wide. Russet potatoes also hold their shape when baked, which I feel is quite essential to this recipe, as the roses are twice baked – once in a muffin tin and once in the tart. 

Tools:

• A mandoline slicer is quite essential to quickly getting uniform and wafer thin slices that fold without breaking when rolled into rose shape.
• A 12- cup muffin tin helps in baking all the roses in one go, instead of doing multiple batches.

Seasoning: I kept the seasoning simple with just salt and pepper, so as to not affect the flavor of the tart, but feel free to add paprika, cajun seasoning, or any other you typically pair your potatoes with. 

There are two simple ways to season the potatoes:

• After slicing, sprinkle salt and pepper on the slices along with a generous spoon of oil. Then roll the roses.
• After shaping the roses and placing them in the muffin tin, drizzle generously with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper on top.

Pre-baking: When I baked the tart with raw potato roses, I found that it made the filling soggy from all the water it released during the cooking process. So pre-bake the roses in a muffin tin, then drain on a wire rack for extra oil and water to run off. Then use these roses in the tart.

Trimming: Sometimes, when your potatoes are slightly leaning towards the larger end of medium size, it may create roses that are ‘taller’ than the pie tin, particularly after the pie tin is filled with the pastry crust. So, while adding the pre-baked potato roses to the pie crust, trim the base so that it is on level with the pie crust edge. Don’t throw the trimmings away. Lay them on a baking tray, sprinkle with salt, pepper and a touch of paprika and bake in a 425°F/220°C oven for 20 minutes. Serve hot with a dip of your choice as a delicious snack.

Now, here’s a quick video on how I shaped these potato roses.

I added some sautéed onions and peppers to add to the flavor of the coconut milk custard and poured it around the potato roses in the blind baked pastry base. Bake until the filling is firm and serve warm with a side of salad.

When you make this VEGAN Potato Rose Tart (which I really think you SHOULD!), be sure to SHARE YOUR PHOTOS with me through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. I’d love to see what you cook from here!

VEGAN Potato Rose Tart

Yield: One 9" tart

Prep Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 50 minutes

VEGAN Potato Rose Tart - gorgeous potato roses baked in a savory coconut milk custard with onions & peppers in a crispy pastry crust!

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Ingredients

For the potato roses

• 4-5 medium sized Idaho® Russet potatoes
• ¼ - ⅓ cup vegetable oil (or more for greasing)
• Salt and Pepper, to taste

For the pastry

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 stick plant-based butter, chopped into small pieces (I used Country Crock Plant butter)
• 4 tablespoons ice-cold water (I put a few ice cubes in ice water to make them extra cold)

For the filling

• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• ⅓ cup (55 grams) bell pepper, diced
• ½ cup (55 grams) red onion, diced
• 200 ml full fat canned coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons chickpea flour
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon paprika
• A pinch of ground turmeric
• A pinch of dried Italian seasoning
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

Instructions

Make the potato roses

1. Peel and wash the potatoes. Keep them immersed in water to prevent discoloration.
2. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin with vegetable oil. Set aside.
3. Using a mandoline slicer in #1 setting, slice the potatoes in thin strips (lengthwise).
4. Place about 10 slices overlapping over one another on a clean work surface, start at one end and begin rolling.
5. Set aside. Place another 10 overlapping slices on work surface, take the first roll of potatoes, place it on one end and continue loosely rolling. Repeat until you have a potato rose about 2 inches wide.
6. Place in muffin tin and drizzle generously with vegetable oil, making sure to brush the tips. Season with salt
   and pepper.
7. Continue making roses until you have made about 10-12 roses.
8. When you start working on the last potato, preheat oven to 425°F/220°C. Position baking rack to the middle position.
9. Once you’re done shaping the roses, bake in the preheated oven at 425°F/220°C for 30-35 minutes.
10. Remove each rose from the muffin tin, drain on wire rack to let extra liquid/oil drip. Set aside.

Make the pie crust

1. While the potato roses are baking, make the pastry dough.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt and butter. Using a fork or a pastry cutter, shred the butter into the flour, making sure not to overwork it.
3. Add the ice cold water and press into a dough without kneading. Add only enough water to get a crumbly dough that holds its shape when pressed into a ball.
4. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes.
5. Between two sheets of wax/parchment paper, roll the chilled dough into a disc about 12” wide.
6. Transfer to a 9” pie tin, trim off excess. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes to chill.
7. Preheat oven to 425°F/220°C.
8. Line the top of the chilled pastry with parchment paper/foil. Place pie weights or dried lentils on top. Bake in the preheated oven at 425°F/220°C for 15 minutes.
9. Remove the pie weights/parchment paper, continue baking for another 7 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Make the filling

1. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a small skillet. Sauté the diced peppers and onion until slightly soft. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, combine the remaining ingredients – from coconut milk through to red pepper flakes. Set aside.

Assemble

1. Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C.
2. Spread the roasted onion and peppers on the blind baked pie crust.
3. Arrange the potato roses on top, trimming the bases if needed to make them fit into the pie crust without being too tall.
4. Pour the filling into the pie crust, making sure to get in between the roses.

Bake

1. Bake in the preheated oven at 400°F/200°C in the middle rack for 30 minutes.
2. Cover with foil and continue baking for another 10-15 minutes or until the filling is set.
3. Remove from oven, let sit for 5-7 minutes and serve warm.

Notes

• Don’t waste the potato rose base trimmings! Lay them on a baking tray, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake in a 425°F/220°C oven for 20 minutes. Serve with a dip of your choice as a delicious snack.
• While rolling the potato roses, I like to save the ends (smaller pieces) to make smaller roses. Varying sizes makes for an interesting tart.
• I used Idaho® Russet potatoes here because they really hold their shape while baking. But use whatever small-medium sized Idaho® potatoes you have.
• This tart can be a long laborious process (mostly because of the rose shaping), so I split it into three parts. Day before I need to serve the tart, I blind bake the pie crust, and pre-bake the potato roses. On the day of, I simply put together the custard filling and assemble. Much easier to split it into two days.