Tarte tatin

This recipe gives you the tarte tatin basic. You'll then be able to stretch it by using pears, peaches, apricots or a mix. Golden pastry, juicy fruit and caramel is a great combo. I love it with prune and armagnac ice cream.

Serves: 6

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Source: Familia Hughes via a long-ago newspaper cutting

Ingredients:

Flour, for dusting

500g puff pastry

100g golden caster sugar

100ml calvados

1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped

5 small eating apples (approximately 800g), a mixture of sweet and acidic varieties, peeled, cored and halved widthways

50g butter, cubed

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 190C. Roll out your puff pastry on a lightly floured surface to just over 5mm thick, so it's wide enough to cover an ovenproof frying pan with about 5cm hanging over the edge. Set aside for now.

2. Place the ovenproof pan over a medium heat. Add the sugar, calvados, vanilla seeds and pod. Let the sugar dissolve and cook until you have a light caramel. Please don't touch or taste hot caramel, as it burns really badly.

3. Once the caramel is a lovely chestnut brown, add your apples, stir to coat, and cook for 5 minutes or until the apples soften and you get a toffee-apple vibe happening. Stir in the butter, then lay the pastry on top. Quickly and carefully tuck it into the edges, using a spoon so you don't touch the caramel.

4. Bake the tarte tatin for 25-30 minutes, or until golden and bubbling up from under the edges. To make it look like a tarte tatin you need to turn it out, which isn't hard - but be careful with that hot caramel. Get a serving plate or board larger than your pan and put an oven glove on to protect the arm holding the board. Put the board or plate on top of the pan, then quickly, carefully and confidently turn it out.

5. Put it to one side for a few minutes, so the caramel can cool, then divide it up and serve with a spoonful of crème fraîche or ice cream.