POT LUCK TARTE TATIN
55 MINUTES | SERVES 4 | EASY The pot luck part of the title refers to whatever (pretty much) is lurking in your fruit bowl. It’s a basic tarte tatin recipe, using up whatever fruit you have, lovingly drenched in caramel and pastry.
salted butter 50g
caster sugar 100g
mixed fruits (enough to snugly cover the base of the frying pan)
vanilla paste Ω tsp
ready-made puff pastry 320g sheet ice cream or double cream to serve
• Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Chop up the butter into chunks and chill.
• Heat a 20cm ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat and sprinkle a quarter of the sugar over the base. Let the sugar dissolve and, once liquid, add another quarter of the sugar and let it dissolve. Gently shake the pan if you need to but do not stir with any sort of utensil. Continue adding the sugar as it dissolves and turns a deep, golden amber colour, after about 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, prep the fruit (keeping an eye on the sugar). Halve and pit any stone fruit. Slice a banana into thick chunks. Cut and core an apple into wedges. Peel and thickly chop up a tangerine or orange.
• Once the sugar has dissolved, let it come to a gentle bubble then remove from the heat immediately. Add the chilled butter and vanilla paste, then shake the pan to melt the butter and combine. Add the fruit, cut-side down, on top of the caramel mixture, nestling it all in so it is snugly fitted in a single layer. Gently press everything down to settle in the caramel.
• Unroll the pastry sheet on top of the frying pan and, working quickly, loosely cut around the edges to fit. Use the end of a spoon or fingers (make sure you don’t touch the hot caramel) to fold under the pastry edges, tucking them in down the sides of the frying pan. Use a small knife to prick a few holes over the pastry so steam can escape easily.
• Bake on the top shelf of the oven for 40 minutes until the pastry is golden and the caramel is bubbling around the edges. Remove from the oven and let it sit for 15 minutes before carefully inverting onto a serving plate and serving with ice cream or double cream.
SWAP-INS
You can use plums, pears, oranges and tangerines, nectarines, peaches, grapes, cherries, mangoes, bananas, pineapple – whatever you have.
PER SERVING 561 KCALS | FAT 31.4G SATURATES 16.6G | CARBS 62G | SUGARS 36.9G FIBRE 3.6G | PROTEIN 5.7G | SALT 0.9G