Autumn is upon us and in Cambridgeshire Apple day events are blooming. The area used to be a big place with lots of orchard and quite a few apple producers. Obviously that time is gone but local, sustainable food is back on the market so there is a revival for celebrating local products and suppliers.
Few weeks ago I went to Ely for the Apple day fair where I came across some local producers who are trying to bring back to life different variety of apples which some of them have completely disappeared. Obviously I came back with lots of different apples and apples juices produced locally and the first thing I wanted to do is an apple tart…however I wanted to make sure the topping was soft and not dry. So here what I have done:
1 puff pastry Enough cooked apples peeled and sliced to cover your puff pastry A tbsp of sliced almond
For the toffee sauce
50gr butter 2 tbsp of golden syrup 50gr of light muscovado sugar 2 tbsp of single cream
Turn the oven on at 180C.
First lay your puff pastry and place it in a fluted tart tin . In a pan put butter, light muscovado sugar and golden syrup all together and cook it until all the sugar dissolved and start to bubble to turn into a runny caramel. Lay your sliced apples one by one and cook them in the caramel for a couple of minutes. You will probably need to cook them in batch as the idea is to make sure the slices are holding their shape but soften a little. As soon as they are soft remove them of the pan and lay them on the puff pastry starting from the edges….The idea is to overlap them in circle and work towards the centre of the puff pastry as if you were making a flower.
Once you have done all the sliced apple, pour the single cream and mix it with a wooden spoon with the runny caramel to blend all the ingredients together. Let it bubble an other few minutes until it reduced slightly to obtain a toffee sauce. Pour it over the apples.
Spray over some sliced almond and then cook in the oven for 25mn at 180C or until the puff pastry and sliced almond are well cooked and golden.
On its own with a cup of tea on a Sunday afternoon it’s perfect…but with a scoop of vanilla cream it can be AWESOME!!!!
