Vanilla Custard Tarts -- little Pi Day treats from my gluten-free, plant-based kitchen

Pi Day is a distant memory at this point, but the delicious tarts we came up with on the fly at the last minute still haunt my mind like a friendly ghost. At 12:30 my kid said: "What about pie? Are we having pie? I said: "Oh. You want pie?" The answer of course was yes, and when I asked what kind, the answer was 'custard pie'. Not that we've ever had custard pie, but a small detail like that has never stopped my kid before. I suggested in lieu of big pie, we try tarts, and an agreement was achieved. We thought it would be fun to eat our pie on pi day at exactly 1:59 in the afternoon, so that left us almost 90 minutes to conceive a recipe, gather our ingredients, create our concoction, and have it ready in time for the fateful, nerdiest minute of pie day. (Since of course I was not going to participate in pie or pi at 1:59 in the morning). The good news is this prepped up in very little time, and because these little tarts are quite petite, there was enough time for them to cool down and fully set as well.

Bonus points for being amazingly delicious!!

vanilla custard tarts — vegan, gluten free

equipment needed:

-grinder (I used it to grind oat flakes into a very fine flour because I didn't have oat flour)

-6 silicone muffin cups and a baking sheet (if you have small tart pans, you can use those instead)

-measuring spoons

-measuring cups

-mixing bowl

-fork

-stove

-small pot

-whisk

ingredients:

crust:

A)

1/4 cup almond flour

6 tbsp oat flour

1/8 tsp sea salt

B)

1 1/4 tbsp coconut oil

C

1 1/2 tsp agave (or other liquid sweetener of your choice)

filling:

D)

1 cup water + 2 tbsp

1 tsp vanilla extract

5tbsp agave or other liquid sweetener of your choice

E)

4 tbsp soy milk powder

2 tbsp corn starch

1/2 tsp agar agar powder

pinch of turmeric (optional just for appealing colour)

1/4 + tsp sea salt

directions:

crust:

preheat the oven to 345

1. Combine the ingredients from A) until well mixed
2. add B) and mix well with a fork
3. add C) and mix in well with a fork
4. divide the resulting mixture between 8 or 9  silicone muffin cups, and press down to form crusts (I kept the mixutre in the bottom only, and didn’t take it up the sides)
5. bake for 7 to 10 minutes

filling:

1. in a small pot, combine D)
2. combine  E) in a small bowl, then add to D), and whisk together before heating
3. heat, whisking all the while
4. stir on a low gentle simmering boil until fully thickened and glossy
5. when tart crusts are out of the oven, divide the filling equally among all of them
6. allow to cool fully before removing from the silicone moulds and eating.
7. left overs can be stored in the silicone moulds in an airtight container in the fridge