Time has certainly got away from me these past few weeks. I’ve been working on creating some new additions to my photography course, and that’s been soaking up all my time and creative energy as of late. But it’s nearly wrapped up, and now I’ve gotten a nice little moment to write up this coconut lime tart recipe that I’ve had in my back pocket for over a month now.

It’s an excellent treat for this time of year, when you’re craving something bright and zesty after soooo many hearty stews and soups (at least that’s how I feel about it. If you never tire of soups and stews, God bless you.) I’ve found myself wistfully thinking about a coconut lime margarita and a warm sandy beach more than once this winter, but since that’s not really an option for me for a variety of reasons, I decided to make myself a tropical getaway in food-form. Enter, coconut lime tart. While the crust might look like a sandy beach, the flavor + texture is much more along the lines of a coconut-y graham cracker cookie. Plus, it’s an easy one to whip up in the food processor (it takes less than a minute.)

Filling-wise, it’s basically your standard custard base with some coconut milk, lime juice, and lime zest added in. There’s also a touch of tapioca flour to thicken it up, but you could use normal flour if you don’t have tapioca flour on hand. I also added some natural powdered green food coloring to give it a lime-green hue, but you can skip this step if you don’t have any handy, or you can try it with matcha powder, but just be aware it will probably add a matcha flavor to the custard, too. If you use liquid non-natural food coloring (i.e. artificial food coloring), it is MUCH more concentrated than the natural powdered stuff, so you’d probably only need 1 or 2 drops of it.

After the coconut lime tart is all baked, you can top it with an Italian meringue for a wee bit of extra-sweetness and a little of that delicious toasted marshmallow-y flavor. You can keep things simple and just spread the meringue on top with the back of a spoon, making sun little swirls and swooops, or if you want it to look a bit fancy like it does in the photo, you can use a pastry bag with a star tip to pipe out rosette swirls and little stars. The choice is yours, but it will taste fantastic either way. I hope you enjoy this little burst of summer flavor, and I’ll do my best to be back with another recipe sooner rather than later, my friend! 😘