Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Tarte Tatin with Whisky Apples and Blackberries



Our last trip to the woods didn't really work out the way we thought. 
Due to a lack of rain and high temperatures we hardly found any mushrooms. 
What seemed to become a rather disappointing trip turned into a quite successful day otherwise.


We went home with a basket full of wild carrots, Canadian golden rut, sea buckthorn, blackberries 
(so sweet, and definitely the best blackberries I ever had!) and apples, 
that we stole picked from trees near the forest...and at least a few mushrooms.


Wil made a weirdly delicious cold carrot dill soup for which he used the wild carrots 
and our homegrown dill seeds for flavoring 
(the carrots we picked were to hard and chewy to eat, but very aromatic!). 
We used the golden rut for tea. Not sure what to do with the sea buckthorn, yet. 
It's still sitting in the fridge waiting for something to happen...


But with the apples and the blackberries I decided to make my first Tarte Tatin. 
And let me tell you, that was not that easy. 
I probably didn't choose the best recipe... 
But I'll do it again. It turned out pretty well!

Ingredients 

200g flour
50g sugar 
100g cold butter (cut in small cubes/flakes)
1 dash of salt
1 dash of cinnamon
plain flour for dusting

150-200g blackberries
1,25-1,5 kg apples (e.g. Cox orange or Granny Smith)
2 Tbsp Whisky
2-3 Tbsp lemon juice
150 g sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
75 g cold butter (cut in small cubes/flakes)


Directions

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

For the shortcrust quickly mix flour, sugar,butter flakes salt and cinnamon until it comes together in a dough. 
Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Peel apples, remove the cores and cut each into 8-12 wedges. 
Put the wedges in a bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice. 
Add whisky and cinnamon.

Take a heavy-bottomed pan and evenly sprinkle the bottom with sugar. 
Place on the hob over medium heat, turning the pan frequently and making sure the sugar doesn't burn. 
Let the sugar caramelize. It's about right when it turns golden brown. 

Remove from heat and place one half of the blackberries over the bottom of the pan. 
Arrange the apple wedges on top of them and place the other half of the blackberries on top of the apple wedges. 
Dot the butter flakes on top.

Dust a clean surface and a rolling pin with flour and roll out your shortcrust until it's big enough to cover your tarte pan. 
Carefully lay the shortcrust over the top of the pan.

Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown.

Using oven gloves take a plate that is larger than the tarte pan and place it on top of the pan.
Holding the plate and the pan firmly together, quickly and carefully flip both, so that the pan is on top and the plate is on the bottom. Slowly remove the pan. The tarte should be left on the serving place with the fruits on top.

Let cool down for a few minutes.

Serve warm with vanilla ice or custard.


PS: 

I will try a different shortcrust recipe next time. The dough was really hard to roll out. It was very crumbly, which is a common problem with shortcrust, I know. But still, I had better ones before. Even though it tasted really good.
The reason could also be that I used whole wheat flour with the regular flour as well...

I saw on some websites that you can also just use a cast iron pan for it. I'll do that next time, as well!

You don't necessary need to marinate the apple wedges in whisky. It still tastes really good without it.




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