Inside-out apple crumbles

CREATE this spiced, saucy, sticky and sensational baked dessert with apples and crunchy pastry. The caramel is hidden inside.

Ingredients

40g (1⁄4 cup) plain flour

50g butter, chilled, chopped 25g (1⁄4 cup) instant rolled oats 30g (1⁄4 cup) walnuts, finely chopped

1 tbsp brown sugar

6 (about 200g each) apples 6 sheets frozen puff pastry, just thawed

6 cinnamon sticks

1 egg, lightly whisked

2 tsp raw sugar

Caramel sauce, to serve Double cream, to serve

Method

Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan-forced. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place the flour and butter in a bowl. Use your fingertips to rub in the butter until fine crumbs form. Stir in the oats, walnuts and sugar.

Use an apple corer to remove the core from the apples, using the corer twice to make a slightly larger hole about 2cm round.

Cut 1 pastry sheet into a 22cm round disc. Place 1 apple in the centre of the pastry. Fill the apple cavity with one-sixth of the crumble mixture, pressing in firmly (a little will fall on to the pastry around the apple).

Press a cinnamon stick into the apple cavity. Brush the edge of the pastry disc with the whisked egg and fold the pastry up and around the apple to enclose. Brush with egg.

Cut leaf shapes from the pastry scraps and use to decorate the top. Sprinkle with a little sugar. Place on the prepared tray. Repeat with the remaining pastry, apples, crumble mixture, cinnamon sticks, egg and sugar to make 6 apples.

Bake the apples for 30–35 minutes or until golden and crisp. Drizzle with the caramel sauce and serve with the cream.

Recipe by Michelle Southan Photo by Al Richardson