tART!

One of my favorite food blogs is the Urban Vegan. Recently, she created a tART contest, in which she called for artistic, vegan tarts of all sorts. Being a vegan who teaches art history, how could I resist?

Many people have already entered the contest with gorgeous seasonal fruits and vegetables, and their tarts are truly beautiful and yummy-looking. I decided to be a bit more literal with the art. In all the art history classes I teach, I notice the students love to see tactile examples of the art they are studying. In teaching a course on modern art this summer, one of the favorites to emerge was Piet Mondrian. So I decided to re-create a Mondrian painting in tart form...

For the base tart, I used a French vegan recipe for tarte au sucre, a sugar tart made with soymilk, sugar, and Earth Balance margarine. Here is how it came out:



Bijou the cat was definitely interested!

After letting it cool, I made a white layer for my "canvas" using a basic vegan icing recipe of 2 parts Tofutti cream cheese and 2 parts vegan powdered sugar to 1 part Earth Balance margarine. (This makes a great topping on cinammon buns and other types of baked goods, too).

Here is what the tart/canvas looked like after this layer had been added:



Now, I had to pick a Mondrian painting that was beautiful and tart-translatable. I chose "Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray," which he painted in 1921.



Now, how to transfer the image onto the tART? At this point I tried channeling my friend Natalie, who in addition to being a Ph.D. candidate, is also a supreme cake decorating master. I decided to go with vegan food coloring and vegan black cake decorating gel.

First, I traced the image onto paper to try to get the proportions straight.



Next, it was time to work on getting the outlines on the tart. I am not one with much of a steady hand, so this was nerve-racking for me. I could actually feel my heart thumping in my chest!



I had the same white icing recipe from above ready and divided into three portions colored red, yellow, and blue with the food coloring. Next was the hardest part, "painting" the squares in, trying not to muddle the colors or mess up the outlines.






I used a rubber spatula, and for the detail work, I used a chopstick and a knife to get the edges as close to done as possible.

After checking to make sure it passed inspection with our other cat, Marble,



we were done!



Thanks, Mondrian!



A yummy rustic French tart, tART-ed up!

tART!