Apple Tart with Salted Caramel and Hazelnuts

This tart is a bit of an experiment.  I had a bag of apples in the fridge that really needed using up and I couldn't be bothered to juice them.  I flicked through a couple of cookbooks and located a simple recipe of apple tart.  Simple being - make a pasty case, slice apples and arrange, bake, spread with apricot jam, eat.  I was just about to start making it when I remembered I had some hazelnuts that needed using up.  While hunting through the cupboard for the hazelnuts I knocked over the box of sea salt and I suddenly thought - salted caramel!

I had never made salted caramel before but I had tried it a number of times and liked it.  I think the last time was a salted caramel latte from Costa Coffee.  Anyway, it didn't take long to find a suitable recipe online for salted caramel sauce and after a little bit of playing around with the recipe I came up with this.

The tart was better the next day after the caramel had time to set.  Straight from the oven the apples had released quite a bit of juice and cutting the tart resulted in a puddle of sauce.  The next day however the caramel had set more and the juices soaked back in to the apple.

The pastry for this tart is baked along with the apples, but I brushed the uncooked pastry with egg to form a seal.  After an initial bake to soften the apples I poured over the caramel and baked for a further 20 minutes.

Salty and sweet...I didn't use any special apples for this, actually I was worried they would be too sweet, it worked and I am happy with it.

Apple Tart with Salted Caramel and Hazelnuts

Makes a 26cm tart

For the pastry
180g plain flour
90g unsalted butter, cold
1 tbsp cold water

about 6 crisp apples of your choice
juice of lemon
100g hazelnuts

For the salted cameral sauce
75g unsalted butter
75g light brown sugar
50g caster sugar
125ml double cream
1 tsp sea salt (high quality, this is the star ingredient after all)


Preheat the oven to 180c (160c fan) and make the pasty by whizzing up the flour and butter in a processor until fine crumbs.  Add the water and process until it just starts to clump...you may need 1 tbsp more of water.

 

 

Roll out and wrap in cling flim, rest in fridge while you prep the apples.

 

Peel the apples and chop in half, then half again and again.  Place in a bowl and pour over the lemon juice.  Make sure all the apples are tossed in the juice, this prevents browning while your sorting out the pastry.

After the pasty has had a good hour in the fridge, remove and roll out and line the tin. 

Arrange the apples any way you like and bake for 20 minutes.

While baking making the sauce...  Place the sugars and butter in a small pan and melt on high until bubbling.  Pour in the cream (it will steam and bubble so be careful)  Whisk until it calms down.

 

 

Add the salt and whisk.  Add the hazelnuts, these have been chopped.

Remove the tart from the oven and pour over the cameral mixture.  Place back in the oven and bake for another 15 minutes.

 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool...best to place in the fridge to 'set' the cameral.  You can serve it once cooled from the oven but I found the cameral was liquid. Still fab though.

Enjoy.

Strawberry Cupcakes

I love strawberries and these cupcakes contain 1 punnet of fresh strawberries, both in the cake itself and the frosting.  This recipe comes direct from Martha Stewart 'Bake' and all I have done is adapt the ingredients to sub the 'cake flour' Amercian's use so much and also slightly reduced the amount of strawberries due to comments left by other bakers about the cakes being a little too wet due to the strawberry moisture.  I converted all the measures from cups to gram for us UK bakers - that is why you my wonder why the amounts are not rounded up like most recipes.

The recipe I give below is based on Martha's Yellow Cake recipe and on the show she shows three different uses for it - a simple orange chocolate cake, fruit topped cakes and these strawberry cupcakes.  The recipe makes 30 cakes, yes I know lots!!  And I did find the I had quite a bit of frosting left over, maybe I should have used more on the cakes?  I have not changed the amounts she suggests due to the fact I had already played around with the cake flour sub and I didn't want to introduce another element that could mean these went wrong.  However, now I have baked them and am happy with the outcome I believe you could quite easily half the amounts for both cake and frosting and make about 18-20 cakes instead of the bumper 30.

It is important that all the cake ingredients are at room temp - butter, milk, eggs, etc.

You WILL need a stand mixer to make the frosting, I really do not think a handheld would cut it.

You can store these at room temp until needed or in the fridge, but its best to remove a good hour before serving otherwise the buttercream sets solid.

Strawberry Cupcakes

by Martha Stewart

for the cupcakes

410g plain flour

26g cornflour 

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

226g butter, unsalted, room temp

343g caster sugar

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

300ml whole milk

6 oz strawberries, diced smalled (about half a punnet)

for the frosting

8 large egg whites

562g sugar, I used granulated to save wasting caster.

680g butter, unsalted, room temp

2 tsp vanilla extract

165g strawberry jam (best quality)

6 oz chopped strawberries (the rest of the punnet)

Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan) and line two 12 cup pans with papers, if you have it another smaller pan with 6 more or you can bake another batch after the first have finished.

In a large bowl sift together the flour with the cornflour and salt.  A double sifting would be good here.  Leave to one side.

Place the butter and sugar in a mixer and beat for 4 minutes until light.

 

Add the eggs, one at a time, and allow each to be mixed in to the butter/sugar mixture.

 

Add the vanilla extract.

Then, place two large spoonfuls of flour in to the mixture and beat ON LOW.  Add about 100 ml of milk and mix.  Repeat with more flour and milk, then again, until the mixture is just about coming together but there may be some bits unmixed round the sides of the bowl.

Add the strawberries and mix well, make sure the bottom of the bowl is scraped.

Use an ice cream scoop to fill the cake liners, fill almost full as they do not rise that much.

Bake for 20 minutes, until the tops are slightly raised and when pressed spring back a little.  A toothpick inserted will come out clean.  If necessary bake for another minute.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes - do not be alarmed if your domed cakes now sink and flatten - this is actually want you want.

Remove to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting, place the egg whites in a clean mixer bowl and add the sugar.  Over a pan of simmering water whisk the eggs until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is hot to touch - this can take about 4 minutes.

Transfer the mixer bowl to the machine and fit the whisk.  Whisk on full power for at least 8 minutes.   The eggs will mix up very high and cool as they whisk.

 

Only when the mixture is much cooler than you started is it safe to add the butter...a chunk at a time.  Your frosting will start to collapse and may even look soupy as it whisks.  Keep adding the butter, as you get to the last bits of butter you will notice the frosting starts to clump together around the whisk and magically becomes smooth buttercream.

Add the strawberry jam and vanilla extract, whisk in.  

Make sure your strawberry pieces are smaller than the ones you placed in the cake batter - otherwise you may find they get stuck in your pipping nozzle later on.

Add the strawberry pieces and beat in.  Remove the bowl and transfer the buttercream to a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle.  It may be safe to use half and pipe, then refill the bag with the rest.

Pipe LOTS of buttercream on top of the cooled cakes...aim high, you will have more than enough for each cake.

I finished mine with a drizzle of strawberry ice-cream topping.

Enjoy.

Clementine Cake

This is a very summery cake.  Quick and easy to make, well easy to make, it does take 2 hours to simmer the oranges but thats hardly work.  This cake is made with ground almonds and if you use gluten free baking powder its totally gluten free.  Made with clementines this cake is dense yet light, sweet but tangy, perfect for afternoon coffee.

You could make the cake with lemons instead and add a little more sugar to compensate the sourness.  Or mix lemons and oranges to create a citrus style cake.  Everything is whizzed up in the processor and it takes about 1 hour to bake slowly in a medium heat oven.  It really is that easy and uses minimal ingredients.  

Served warmed from the oven is nice or cold from the fridge.  This cake actually gets better with age and will always stay moist.  You could say FAT FREE to, since it contains no fats, but actually I don't think this makes it healthy to eat since there is natural oils in the almonds, lots of eggs and plenty of sugar.

It takes about 3 large clementines to make this cake, don't stress too much about the weights although I do give them below.  When I placed three on the scales it went well over the recommended amount but don't worry, 100g over won't be the end of the world.  Of course, be sensible, don't use four clementines when three would do or you may end up with far too much mixture.

Clementine Cake

3 large clementines (about 350g)

225g caster sugar

250g ground almonds

6 large eggs

1 tsp baking powder (make sure its gluten free if thats important)

Place the clementines in a large pan and cover with cold water.  Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer for 2 hours.  Lid off.  Keep an eye on it but you won't have to stress too much.  I actually left it simmering when I went up to the shop to get some almonds.

Leave to cool, or until you can safely handle them.  Cut in half and check for pips, I had none but if you do remove them.  Place in a food processor, skin and all...and blend to a smooth paste.

Preheat the oven to 190C (170 fan) Grease and line a 8inch cake tin.

Tip in all the other ingredients and whizz up to a smooth batter.  It will be very liquid.

 

Pour in to the tin, if your lucky it will fill it up but not overflow.  Place the tin on a baking sheet as this makes it easier to remove from the oven and should it expand a little to much and overflow you won't mess up your oven.  

Bake for an hour.  Check after 40 minutes, if it looks like its browning to much reduce the oven temp to 180C (160C) and open the door for 30 seconds to reduce the temp.

When you remove this cake it will be puffed up and high, then it will sink...this is what you want.  It should not sink in the middle too much but it should flatten out to pretty much what it was like before you baked it.

Leave to cool in the tin, then remove.  I dusted with some icing sugar.

Enjoy.