Lime Curd Tart with Coconut Whipped Cream

Some people have a green thumb. To put it quite frankly, I am not one of them. While many gardeners can sow, weed, and prune a plant into flourishing perfection, I struggle to complete some of the more basic tasks, such as burying the seeds at the correct depth or finding the motivation to weed (perhaps a bit of laziness is also to blame). Even so, my plants have a tendency to wither despite regular watering. They gather the nasty little bugs whenever I want to keep a flower indoors, and my vegetable plants grow the smallest of produce at the end of the season.

I am become Death, the destroyer of plants.

Each spring the feeling of rebirth floats through the air, infecting me with a strong desire to kneel in the dirt and plant a garden. The eagerness to hold a handful of seeds makes me briefly forget my black thumb and the poor path my plants will soon travel down. When I lived at home with my parents, I would convince my mother to fill her garden with half a dozen varieties of vegetables. I convinced her that I would do the tending. I convinced her I would help them grow. Rarely, I am ashamed to admit, did I follow through on my deceitful promises. The plants would endure a hot sun, vagrant weeds, and abit of neglect. At the end of the season, we'd collect our micro-vegetables, telling ourselves that we would plant flowers next year instead.

As the temperature finally rose this weekend, I felt the familiar urge to dig around in the dirt and grow new life. The trees have not yet budded with leaves, but for the first time this year it felt like spring has arrived. Even though I know my planting ventures are destined to end poorly (just ask my basil plant from last summer), I cannot shake the optimism that this year might be different—that this year I could grow something beautiful.

Even if I will not be able to grow a flourishing plant, I can bake something beautiful. And really, that might be the most delicious in the end.

This Lime Curd Tart with Coconut Whipped Cream is an ode to spring, with bright green colors and bold new flavors. A lightly sweetened whole wheat tart crust is filled with a tart lime curd and swirled with spoonfuls of coconut whipped cream. Serve with a sprinkling of lime zest and another dollop of whipped cream to celebrate the arrival of sunshine and warmer weather.

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Almond Joy Candy Bars

Coconut never used to be a familiar word in my vocabulary nor did the fruit itself often find its way into my stomach. As landlocked as one could be, coconuts were as foreign of an idea as palm trees and tropical seas—the subject of many a daydream, but not of an everyday reality. I remember looking over the brown coconut shells in the supermarket, hard beneath my hands, and I was curious how long the coconuts had been sitting on the shelf (I had never witnessed a person purchase one before). A sign overhead asserted that the coconut could be opened best with an ice pick, pointed proof showing how far this little coconut was from home.

As I placed the coconut back on the shelf, I wondered if people in tropical climates carried around ice picks for this specific purpose. The thought struck me as silly, but I could not think of a tool better suited than the one for winter weather.

Eventually, my curiosity got the best of me and I bought a supermarket coconut of my own. I was skeptical of the coconut, as perhaps I should have been, but willing to keep an open mind. In the hot summer sun, I brought it back to my dorm room where my friends and I stared at it, wondering if we would be able to find an ice pick during this time of year. As we passed it between each other, pondering the usage of butcher knives and sharp rocks, my friend accidentally dropped it on the tile floor. Neatly splitting in two, the coconut water began to puddle around it.

A coconut, it seemed, hardly needed any motivation to open at all.

We stared at the coconut shell on the floor for a moment or two, in disbelief that the coconut was so fragile. My friend, who had lived in Hawaii the year before, took this as a bad omen. We scooped the supermarket coconut off the tile, trying to salvage as much as possible. The smell was musky and unpleasant. The taste, even worse. A bad coconut, my friend declared, as she cleanly tossed it in a nearby trash can.

Though my introduction to fresh coconut was less than ideal, it was the start of a coconut affair that would only grow and flourish. While fresh coconut may be out of the picture, dried coconut has become a pantry staple.

Homemade Almond Joy Candy Bars are much healthier and taste just as wonderful as the store-bought version. The coconut center is made with unsweetened shredded coconut, honey, and coconut oil to bind it together. With an almond on top and a chocolate coating, the candy bar is complete. While I placed almonds both inside and on top of the chocolate coating, I would suggest placing the almonds inside the chocolate coating. The almonds placed on top of the chocolate coating have a tendency to fall off during preparation. A no-bake treat, these candy bars can be ready in thirty minutes time.

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Coconut Whipped Cream

Since becoming both a baker and a blogger, I have noticed an intrinsic change in the way I approach, prepare, and appreciate food. In many ways, I anticipated that a small evolution would take place when I carefully typed out my first post, but I could not have imagined how much it would affect (and continue to affect) my life.

When I started blogging, it was out of desperate desire to find a passion for myself, a need to express the confused emotions and excitement of growing up and coming into my own. I latched onto the idea that baking was where I should be, clutching onto the hope as if it was the only life saver in my ocean of feelings. There was no evidence to support these feelings—I did not bake often and knew very little about it—but I was so frantic to find something to call my own that this indomitable mountain did not seem to matter. When I began blogging, I started from scratch. I taught myself how to create desserts through trial and error. I experimented with yeast, rolled out pie crusts, and stumbled around the kitchen, sharing these moments of discovery with you.

I have met people who have changed the way I think about food. While I lived in Montreal, my roommate unknowingly shared her philosophy of cooking and eating over the dinner table each evening, as she consistently prepared fresh and healthy foods (a feat I had yet to master). She took me to the local farmer's market and shared her thoughts about fruits and vegetables, as we wandered through the colorful, vibrant aisles with our market bags growing increasingly heavier. Though her wisdom was disguised as everyday conversation, she unconsciously taught me to treat my body with respect. Looking back, it was a lesson I needed to learn more than I understood.

By chance, I once listened to a segment on the radio in which Nigella Lawson talked about her perspective on summer fruits. Her passion was so evident and her descriptions so vivid that I was swept up in her approach to food. Her words affected me so deeply that I can recall them several years later.

In those early months of discovery, when I could not have anticipated what my approach to food would become, I imagined myself making colorful cakes and using sprinkles on everything from cookies to ice cream cakes. My real evolution has taken me by surprise—a mixture of rusticity, homespun flavors, and what I hope to be honesty. I am driven by the seasons and fall prey to my whims and cravings. What started as a desperate compulsion to find a passion has matured into a journey of butter, sugar, and self-discovery.

Any path that leads to something so simple and elegant as coconut whipped cream is a path I deem worth following.

Coconut Whipped Cream is a dairy-free/vegan alternative to traditional whipped cream. The natural fat content of coconut milk makes it possible to whip it up with a mixer, creating soft peaks. While coconut whipped cream is not as stiff as whipped cream, the flavor is immaculate and can be spooned over any dessert of your choosing. The natural subtlety of coconut, along with a few vanilla bean seeds, makes this whipped cream memorable.

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