Baking a vegan tart is relatively easy; you simply omit eggs and animal fats. However, making a vegan and gluten-free tart can be a bit more challenging.

For those who are vegan and also have food allergies or intolerances, baking a simple cake can often be exhausting. Sometimes it's easier to skip it altogether. It's hard to find the perfect recipe because there's always some ingredient that isn't truly vegan or that you can't tolerate. This often leads to the dough being either too soft or too firm, and you may need to adjust baking times, which can happen when baking gluten-free.

I'm not a big fan of recipes myself; I love creative experiments. However, with vegan baking, it often leads to surprising results :)

My vegan and gluten-free "Apple Tart" recipe is straightforward, but as mentioned above, if you swap ingredients, you may need to experiment a bit and knead in a bit more rice flour, tapioca starch, or cornstarch until the dough reaches the right consistency. Each flour behaves differently during processing and baking, which can be a real challenge if you're not experienced or rarely bake.

In my opinion, vegan and gluten-free baking is inherently a bit experimental due to different dietary preferences, and it's helpful to have prior knowledge and know what a shortcrust pastry should feel like, so it doesn't either fall apart during baking or become too crumbly.

I've tried a recipe that worked well for you. However, it's advisable to gradually add water and coconut oil and knead them in, preferably not all at once but spoon by spoon, to achieve the desired shortcrust pastry consistency.

The dry ingredients behave as indicated. When adding water and fat, please proceed gradually, as mentioned above. This is because the ingredients behave differently from wheat flour, which makes baking much easier but isn't as healthy!

Description of the Taste of the "Vegan and Gluten-Free Tart"

Described by a connoisseur who tried the tart:

"The crust of the tart tastes like fantastic coconut-almond macaroons at Christmas - crispy on the outside, meltingly tender on the inside. The apple pieces are soft but still have a texture for a bite. They have a slight acidity but a full apple flavor, as if you've extracted the entire apple aroma in one bite. The base is so thin that parts of the juice released by the apple have found their way to the bottom and caramelized there. Apple caramel, born from the apples' own juice. Super delicious!"

The Ingredients

Whenever possible, I try to use common ingredients that everyone has at home, but in vegan and gluten-free baking, it's not always easy.

However, this recipe is free from raising agents that we are often allergic to.

This recipe uses regular ground almonds, water, salt, good apples, cinnamon, and vanilla extract as desired.

Ingredients that you may not have at home include buckwheat flour, unrefined cane sugar, rice flour (tapioca or cornstarch), agave syrup, and coconut oil. Instead of coconut oil, you can, of course, use vegan margarine.

With coconut oil, it's essential to note that for processing the recipe ingredients, it's best if it's soft, not completely liquid, so you can knead it into the shortcrust pastry as usual. Soft coconut oil makes the dough quite soft and hardens significantly in the fridge (during dough rest). Therefore, you should take the dough out of the fridge about half an hour before rolling it out.

You can also prepare the shortcrust pastry very well in advance, even 1-3 days before baking. This way, you'll be much faster on the baking day, and the dough will gain a lot of flavor. A short resting dough doesn't have as much flavor as one that has had a longer rest.

The Apples

It's really important to use good apples for the tart. With good apples, the taste becomes heavenly. The apple's flavor spreads through the moisture released into the tart base, which is desired. It perfumes the entire dough if it's a good, slightly tart apple.

Therefore, we recommend using Elstar, Cox Orange, or Boskop apples for the flavor. If these aren't available in your country, we recommend using the locally available tart apples. You don't need to buy many of them. As mentioned earlier, just 2 large apples are enough.

The Baking Pans

For a large tart or cake pan, 26 cm in diameter, or two small pie pans, each 18 cm in diameter.

If you want to use a small cake pan, you can, for example, freeze half of the dough, which will keep for about 4 months, or simply use half of the ingredients.

However, it's the same effort. I decided to freeze the second half of the dough because I want to bake another tart from it later, or perhaps even shortcrust cookies. It's actually pretty cool to have ready-made dough on hand.

Besides, it's often easier to measure larger quantities of ingredients.

The Recipe

• 200 g ground almonds
• 80 g buckwheat flour 4-5 tbsp cold water
• 100 g soft coconut oil, plus about 1 tsp coconut oil for the baking pan
• 60 g unrefined cane sugar or coconut blossom sugar
• ½ tsp salt vanilla extract or real vanilla to taste
• 2 large apples for the large tart pan
• 1 large apple for the small tart pan
• ½ - 1 tsp cinnamon about 1-2 tsp unrefined cane sugar

• 1-2 tbsp agave syrup or maple syrup for brushing
• 2 tbsp lentils for blind baking Baking paper

Preparation

The Shortcrust Pastry

1. Measure and prepare all ingredients. 
2. This speeds up the process significantly. 
3. Place almonds, buckwheat flour, sugar, salt, and optionally vanilla in a bowl. 
4. Knead in the coconut oil spoon by spoon. 
5. Knead in cold water spoon by spoon - only enough for the dough to be easy to shape but not too soft. 
6. Knead the dough thoroughly, wrap it in cling film, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

The Apples

1. Peel, core, and slice the apples evenly. 
2. Mix cinnamon with 1-2 tsp cane sugar and set it aside. 
3. Prepare agave syrup.

Blind Baking the Shortcrust Pastry

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C (340°F). 
2. Take the dough out of the fridge (about ½ hour before rolling, depending on room temperature). 
3. Grease the baking pan with coconut oil, place baking paper on the bottom, and clip it with the rim of the cake pan if it's a springform pan; then trim the excess paper. 
4. For a regular tart pan, simply grease it well and lightly dust it with flour.
5. Roll out the shortcrust pastry and place it in the tart pan, pressing the edges. 
6. Place baking paper on the dough and weigh it down with lentils. 
7. Blind bake the pastry for 15 minutes.

Assembling & Final Baking

1. Remove the pre-baked pastry from the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes. 
2. Increase the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F). 
3. Spread the apples evenly on the tart base, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. 
4. Return the tart to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes. 
5. Remove the tart from the oven, drizzle it with agave syrup while still hot.
6. Bake for further 5 for the agave syrup to caramelize.

Violà, enjoy the super delicious tart. But of course let it cool down a bit first.

Bon appetite