The Flour Mix You Need For Deliciously Gluten-Free Tarts

Gluten-free baking can be a challenge without the right recipe. There are a huge number of gluten-free flours available at the grocery store, and knowing which one will give you the result you're looking for requires a bit of trial and error. Luckily, Tasting Table's Jessica Case has developed a perfectly crisp pastry shell for her Chocolate Pomegranate Tart recipe using a mix of coconut and almond flours to make your baking lower stress.

The pastry combines the two flavorful flours with a hint of cardamom and cocoa powder, sweetened with a bit of maple syrup. Coconut oil holds the mixture together, and the result is similar to cookie dough in texture. That's a bonus because there's no fussy rolling out and fitting the crust into your tart pan, you simply press the mixture into the pan evenly, making sure it goes up the sides. You can patch any cracks by pushing the dough together. One thing to note, this crust should be baked unfilled for about 12 minutes — it's not suitable for filling unbaked.

Almond flour has a rich nutty flavor that makes delicious baked goods, but alone, it bakes into a crumbly result. Coconut flour is rich in fiber and absorbs moisture very well. The coconut flour helps to bind almond flour into a dough that will hold up to being sliced and served without falling apart. With no eggs or other binding ingredients in the recipe, the small amount of coconut flour called for guarantees a successful crust.

The crust recipe was developed to encase a decadent melted chocolate ganache filling, but you can swap out other fillings that don't require baking as well. An obvious choice would be a coconut-vanilla pudding filling to echo the flavorful coconut flour in the crust. Bananas and chocolate are a match made in heaven, so you could swap out the graham cracker crust in our Banana Pudding Pie recipe for Case's gluten-free crust, too. A cooked fruit filling or a no-bake strawberry cheesecake recipe are just a few other ideas for dressing up this gluten-free tart crust. Once you've mastered the flour combination that makes the pastry successful, the sky's the limit for making your own creations.