Caramelised Apple Tart
– How to Cheat

This is an extremely good cheat: wafer-thin pastry, light as a whisper, a little squidgy bit of Bramley apple topped with some sliced Cox's then (and this is the great bit) caramelised – not upside-down in a heavy frying-pan or scorched with a chef’s blow-torch. Far too fiddly, all those things. The absolute star performer here is from Lakeland. It’s a ready-made natural caramel, which needs simply painting over the apples with a pastry brush. Serve it with lots of luscious crème fraiche, and you could be in Normandy!

Serves 8

Ingredients

1 x 375 g pack fresh ready-rolled puff pastry
a little flour (for dusting)
1 x 217g jar Marks and Spencer’s Bramley apple sauce
2 Cox’s apples
1 oz (25 g) butter, melted
1 dessertspoon golden caster sugar
3-4 tablespoons Vahiné Caramel Nature

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6, 400°F (200°C).

Begin by rolling out the pastry on a lightly floured surface so the width measures 11 inches (28 cm) across. Then, using a dinner plate, cut out a round of pastry which should measure 10 inches (25.5cm) in diameter (the leftover pastry can be frozen and used another day).

Now remove the round of pastry to a large, lightly greased baking tray, then using the point of a small knife score a circle into the pastry about one inch from the edge (without cutting all the way through). Spread the apple sauce evenly over the pastry inside the scored line.

Next quarter the apples (no need to peel them), remove the cores and slice each quarter into about 10 thin slices, then arrange the slices in circles overlapping each other on top of the apple sauce. Brush the sliced apple with the melted butter, sprinkle with sugar and bake on a high shelf in the oven for about 55 minutes or until the apple is cooked and golden.

Finally, remove it from the oven and brush the hot apple with the caramel sauce. It’s great served hot – or slightly warm – but it also tastes brilliant served cold.

This recipe first appeared in You magazine.

How to Cheat Hero Ingredients:

Marks and Spencer’s Bramley Apple Sauce
Vahiné Caramel Nature (caramel sauce). Please note: this is no longer available from Lakeland; however, our members have reported that you can still buy it in France (see our community area for details).

For more dessert recipes, click here and select the 'desserts' category

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