Gluten-free Bakewell Tart - vegan, no refined sugar

Instructions

Make the pastry base first:

1. Lightly oil the tart dish (approximately 25cm or 10inch diameter) with a dash of coconut oil.
2. Briefly mix the rice flour, tapioca flour and ground flaxseeds together in a bowl.
3. Add the coconut oil (melt first, if solid), rice syrup and vanilla extract. Mix in with a spoon. Once it has started to combine together nicely, use the back of your spoon (or hands if it needs extra help to combine) to ‘press’ it all together until you have one large ball of pastry. If it’s cold then definitely use your hands to combine. The warmth of your hands will soften the coconut oil and make it pliable.
4. It may be easier if you roll out your ball with a rolling pin a little first, although you don’t need to roll it out all the way (as you would conventional pastry). Roll it out just enough to roughly cover slightly less than the bottom of the dish. Then, to line the whole dish (base and sides), press and push the dough evenly to spread it all the way up the sides. There is an art to doing this, involving pushing and pressing with both hands to spread across the bottom of the dish - somewhat like a massage therapist - and then using nimble fingers to push up the sides. With a little practice you’ll get the hang of it. Note: if your kitchen is chilly then the pastry might be too brittle to roll out (it tends to break apart more when the coconut oil cools down). In which case, just use your hands to manually push and spread the dough over the whole dish and forget trying to roll it out with a rolling pin.
5. Once you've lined the dish, put it in the fridge while you complete the rest of the recipe.

Make the cake topping:

1. Now would be a great time to preheat the oven to gas mark 4 (180˚C/350˚F) so that it will be ready and hot by the time you’ve done the topping.
2. Mix all the dry topping ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
3. Mix all the wet ingredients in a jug.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl and thoroughly mix in with the dry. You might get a bit of a ‘fizz’ as the vinegar reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to create the ‘airiness’.
5. Take the pastry-lined tart dish out of the fridge and put an even layer of sugar-free fruit spread or jam onto the base, using a few generous heaped dessertspoon's worth.
6. Pour the cake mixture into the pastry base. If the mixture rapidly turns thick (which often happens if your kitchen is a little chilly), just spoon it in and spread across the base. As soon as it heats in the oven, the cake mixture will distribute itself evenly for you. Pop it into the oven.
7. Bake on a medium to high shelf for approximately 35 minutes.
8. When ready, take out and place on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before attempting to cut. The nature of gluten-free pastry means that it will likely crumble if you don’t let it cool down first.