Lemon-Almond Dessert Frittata

Lemon-Almond Dessert Frittata

I just love Mark Bittman, NY Times food writer and author of Food Matters and How to Cook Everything.  The other night I was looking through my fridge (which was getting rather empty as it was time to go to the farmers’ market) for something to whip up for dessert, and all I could find were some eggs, almonds, a lemon, and half a can of coconut milk.  I remembered a dessert frittata I had made before based on an adaptation to one of Mark’s recipes that I had clipped out of the Times’ food & wine section a few months ago, called a “Pan-Baked Lemon-Almond Tart.” 

This is an absolutely lovely dessert that is so easy to make and quite yummy.  It’s like comfort food.  If you can get your hands on some pasture-raised eggs, those are really ideal because you get the most colorful, healthy, tasty egg yolks possible, and they bake well.  I always keep a bag of raw, unpasteurized almonds in the fridge, which I get at either the farmers’ market or my health food store.  I simply grind them up in my food processor and it works for both the ground and sliced almonds called for in the recipe.  The substitute for cream is easy - coconut milk!  You would think the flavor wouldn’t go well with lemon & almonds, but it does in fact blend very well.  I omitted the powdered sugar entirely and replaced the white sugar with about half that amount (1/4 cup) of brown rice syrup.  (Nobody really needs that much sweetener, especially if you are used to baking without sugar!)  A medium-sized cast-iron skillet works best.  You can either melt some butter (if you can tolerate it) or some virgin coconut oil in the pan, pour in your mixture and let it set, then finish it off in the oven.  It’s so simple.

Here is the link to Mark Bittman’s Pan-Baked Lemon-Almond Tart recipe.  There’s also a video of him preparing the tart here, which is quite entertaining to watch (especially the opening segment).  Just prepare it according to the directions, making the substitutions I mentioned above, and you can’t go wrong for a delicious, easy gluten-dairy-and-sugar-free dessert.  Or enjoy it as a sweet breakfast!