Vegan bakewell tarts

Step 1

Combine sifted flour and icing sugar in a large bowl. Add olive oil and rub it into the dry ingredients with your hands. Finally, add water - be careful, do it gradually - how much water you'll need depends on how absorbent your flour is. Combine all the ingredients into a dough gently, but do not knead. Wrap it in a piece of cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 mins.

Step 2

Remove the dough from the fridge and divide into 6 portions. Roll each portion out between two sheets of baking paper until you get a rough circle, about 2 mm in thickness. Place the rolled-out dough over a muffin hole (I used a 12 hole regular muffin tin for my tarts) and gently line the inside of the hole with the pastry. Trim the excess pastry with a sharp knife. Repeat with the remaining holes.

Step 3

Chill pastry-lined tin in the fridge for about 60 mins.

Step 4

45 min into pastry chilling time, preheat the oven to 175° C / 350° F. Line the pastry cases with pieces of baking paper or muffin liners and fill with baking beads or rice.

Step 5

Blind bake the pastry for 10 mins. Remove the paper and beads and bake for another 5 mins.

Step 6

While the pastry cases are baking, prepare the filling. Cream oil and sugar with an electric whisk. Next, whisk in flour. Finally add almond extract and aquafaba, one tablespoon at a time. Whisk well after each portion of aquafaba.

Step 7

Now fold in ground almonds with a spoon. You should end up with a thick almond batter.

Step 8

Divide almond batter between pastry cases and place half a cherry on top of each filling - do not press it into the filling much as the filling will rise during baking and you want the cherries to remain visible.

Step 9

Bake the tarts for about 30-35 minutes, until the filling is nicely browned. Remove from the oven and allow the tarts to cool down before removing them from the mould.