Vegan pecan pie

Put the flour(s) and frozen ice-cubes of shortening into a food processor with the blade attachment inserted.

Pulse the blade until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add in the sugar and pulse a few times to mix in well.

Transfer to a bowl and sprinkle the very cold water into the mixture as you stir it with a fork.

It should clump together, and then form into larger pieces. At this point if it’s not starting to do this, you may need to add a up to a maximum of 1 more tablespoon. Too much water though will make the finished pastry tough.

Form into a dough.

Then on a sheet of greaseproof paper, pat/roll into a disk a little smaller than the pie dish – and refrigerate for 30mins. Use a high sided 8inch removable base pie/tart case.

Roll out to bigger than the pie dish by around 40mm – still on the sheet of greaseproof paper. Slide hand under paper and offer it up to the pie dish & flip over or fold over a rolling pin to transfer it. Wholemeal pastry is more difficult to work with as it’s not so flexible.

Press gently into the edges and smooth the pastry level with the top edge and trim pastry so it’s not above the lip, with a table knife.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (190°C fan)

Par-bake your prepared pie crust (using ceramic beads to keep it flat) for 15 minutes.

Turn the oven down and set the pie crust aside to cool a little.

While the pie crust is par-baking you can pulse/whiz the rest of the pecans in the food processor until they are in fairly small pieces

Set aside while you melt the margarine over a medium heat in a medium sized pan.

Then add the pecans and toast them in the pan for a few minutes while stirring continuously so they are nicely toasted.

Put the processor bowl on some zero-able scales and add in the 150g of tofu & 100g of full cream coconut milk. (Note: if you buy the clear spring 300g pack of silken tofu, then you can keep a ¼ of a can of coconut milk along with the other half of the tofu in a single container in the freezer ready for the next one!)

Add in (zeroing the scale each time), the coconut sugar, maple syrup & rum – then the cinnamon, orange zest, vanilla essence, cashews, & custard powder.

Give it a really long blitz – around 5 mins – so it’s super smooth.

Pour this mixture into the same pan as the toasted pecans and mix well.

Pour all of it into the waiting pie crust – it should be near the top – but not overflowing.

Carefully lay the remaining pecans on top in a radial pattern – see pics – use 24 to mark each slice with 2 pecans – so 12 slices. It’s difficult to slice neatly if you don’t do it that way.

Bake in the oven on 160°C Fan for about 40 minutes (check at 35mins), or until filling appears mostly firm when you gently jiggle it.

Remove from the oven and cool on the counter for 2-3 hours then cover and store in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours, ideally overnight.

Allow to sit at room temperature for at least an hour before serving. If it’s too cold then it will be firm but serving it at room temperature makes for the perfect texture.