My little apple tarts
Will try and not blog about the animals for a while lest i get formulaic and derivative. I need to sort out some pics of my garden and blog on that but first here's a little of my days work - no, not the ironing or breadmaking but a little pastry number with apples I concocted from perusing several blogs. I was looking for a pastry base guaranteed not to shrink from its task in hand - namely holding a simple but delicious fillling of apple. I found one here.
So, here is my take on those patisserie apple tarts you get in french bakeshops. We can't get real sour cooking apples here so I usually look for the greenest granny smiths I can find. I made one too delicately thin so when it fell apart as i was prising the base out of the tin (oh dear! what a shame! YEAH right!) there was nothing I could do but sample it.
The base is a short (almost shortbread) pastry, the filling simply sliced apples and the syrup I made from the apple leftovers a cinammon stick,water and brown sugar boiled down and seived before adding a couple of knobs of butter. The green stuff is some little mint leaves from the garden. I only had a recipe for the pate sucree (sweet pastry) and kinda guessed the rest...Secret is to freeze the shells before filling and baking them. I parbaked the tartlets for 15mins then added the syrup and baking them for a further 10-15mins. I think the syrup will thicken significantly after refrigeration prior to serving - vanilla mascarpone as a blob on top do you think?
