I tried to experiment by making this a ‘Salted Caramel Tarte Tatin’ but I felt that was a little too tangential for a pudding the origin of which was sheer serendipity; that would be fiddling with fate’s gifts.
You can make your own puff pastry for this, as I did, but I wouldn’t be mad if you bought it, just make sure you buy ‘all butter’.
Ingredients
- 200g caster sugar
- 75g butter, cubed.
- 4 small, or 3 large eating apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 8.
- A dusting of mixed spice
- Seeds of 1 vanilla pod, retain the pod for decoration
- 300g all butter puff pastry
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C (fan). Place the sugar into a ovenproof frying pan over a high heat with 2 tbsp water. Allow to boil, don’t stir, until the sugar is amber; not too dark and not too light. Add the butter to the pan and swirl around until you have a caramel, add the vanilla seeds.
- Arrange the apples on top in any pattern you like, and allow the apples to stew in the caramel over a medium heat for a minute or so. Sprinkle the mixed spice on top of the apples then roll out the pastry and place over the apples, tucking down the sides using a spatula or wooden spoon handle. Slash the pastry top once or twice, then bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the pastry is perfectly golden.
- Turn out onto a plate, garnish with the vanilla pod, and serve with vanilla ice cream (or my salted caramel ice cream).
