PASTRY CASES

1. Combine flour, icing sugar, (plus cornstarch and xanthan gum if making GF pastry) in a large bowl. If using maple syrup instead of icing sugar, don’t add it just yet. Add the softened coconut oil and rub it into the dry ingredients with your fingers until your flour looks like breadcrumbs and there are no lumps of coconut oil left.
2. If you are using maple syrup, add it now and the chances are that you will not need to add any water to bring the dough together. If using icing sugar, add cold water – be careful, do it gradually – how much water you’ll need depends on how absorbent your flour is. I added about 4 tbsp / ¼ cup. Combine all the ingredients into a dough gently, but do not knead (that’s important for the gluten version) or the pastry will be tough. Wrap it up in a piece of cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
3. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out between two sheets of baking paper until you get a circle large enough to cover your entire tart case, about 2-3 mm in thickness. Place the rolled-out dough over a tart case and gently line the inside of it with the pastry. Tuck the pastry in well, ensuring that it fits snugly into all the nooks and crannies. Trim the excess pastry with a sharp knife and patch any holes with the cut-off excess. If making gluten-free pastry (which tends to be more crumbly), you may be better off placing the crumbled pastry in the tart case and simply moulding the pastry with your hands to the shape of the tart tin – you do not need to worry about overworking the pastry as it contains no gluten.
4. Pierce the bottom of the pastry with a fork in a few places and chill the pastry-lined tart case in the fridge for about another 60 minutes.
5. 45 min into pastry chilling time, preheat the oven to 175° C / 350° F. Line the pastry case with a large piece of crumpled baking paper and fill with baking beads or rice for a blind bake.
6. Blind bake the pastry for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and beads and bake for another 10 minutes.

FILLING

1. While the pastry cases are baking, prepare the filling. Cream oil and sugar (or maple syrup) with an electric whisk. Next, whisk in the flour. Add aquafaba, one tablespoon at a time. Whisk well after each portion of aquafaba.
2. Finally, gently fold in the almond meal, zest and almond essence with a spatula. You should end up with a thick batter (it will be a bit less thick if you used maple syrup instead of sugar).
3. Fill the pastry case with almond frangipane and use a silicon spatula to spread the filling evenly. Place the fig quarters on top – don’t worry about them sticking above the level of the filling – the filling will rise during baking a fair bit.
4. Bake the tart for about 50-60 minutes, until the filling is nicely browned. I found that the maple syrup filling tends to take a little longer in the oven (by 10 minutes or so). Remove from the oven and allow the tart to cool down before removing it from the tin and cutting it into slices. The top will crisp up nicely as the tart cools down.