So while we’re still out of town, and I clearly didn’t cook this dish today, I feel like I’m not entirely cheating because I did at least wear this dress today. Chadwiko’s sister is getting married tomorrow, so we had a final pre-wedding dinner tonight. Since she’s a total pink-and-sparkles loving girly-girl, this dress seemed appropriate.

I only picked this one up a few weeks ago, at home in Canberra. As soon as I pulled it off the rack, the sales assistant let me know that this was her favourite dress, and she would be super jealous if it fit me. She also told me that she had dreamed of wearing it to Floriade (Canberra’s inexplicably famous flower festival) to make all the old ladies in attendance jealous of her flower-power attire. While the dress was too small for her, it was a perfect fit for little old me, and with dreams of fraternising with the elderly among the flowers dancing in my head, I bought it.

The bright pink colour instantly reminded me of hibiscus tea. I got hooked on the stuff years and years ago, when I worked at Starbucks. I hated working closing shifts, but the one upside was that there would always be iced tea left over from the day- and since it was just going to get poured out otherwise, I could drink the leftovers to my heart’s content. The hibiscus iced tea soon became my favourite, and it’s usually the first drink I order when I stumble across a Starbucks in some other town or country. I knew I wanted to cook with hibiscus tea somehow!

Since my favourite way to drink my beloved Starbucks iced tea was with a little bit of raspberry syrup, I wanted to cook with raspberries somehow, too. I remembered a dish I’d seen on an episode of some home-cooking show (My Kitchen Rules, maybe? I never actually really watched the show, but I caught a couple of episodes in passing)- miniature raspberry frangipane tarts!

I used the hibiscus tea to replace milk in the frangipane mixture- I had hoped that the colour would come through more brightly than it did, but the raspberries still add a nice little pop of pink. I used the basic recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky, but had a bit of trouble adjusting the recipe for miniature tarts- the filling just wasn’t interested in setting. Nevertheless, they firmed up slightly in the fridge and were still mighty tasty.

I also made the almond press-in crust from VPITS for the first time since testing and remembered just how much I loved it. I’m usually all about shortcrust pastries, but this one could convert me!

Isa has been kind enough to post her frangipane recipe here, so I don’t need to share my adapted version. Good thing too, because I’ve got an early start and a big day ahead tomorrow (bridesmaidin’ ain’t easy!). Here’s hoping for a good night’s sleep, with my dreams of elderly friends replaced by subconscious pie-eating adventures. The best kind of adventures!

Tagged: pie, tea, vegan pie in the sky, veganmofo