We started selling our lovely sea salt caramel filled chocolates in 2008, and they have been really popular ever since. One very warm sunny day, when
we had a stall at Perth Races, it was so hot that anything we put out to taste just melted and we realised that the caramel made an amazing ice cream sauce! We started to sell the caramel in jars on its own and it has been a great success – but we are always asked ‘ so, what can we do with this? other than eat it with a spoon!’ I have been experimenting; starting with ice cream (fabulous), waffles (outstanding), scotch pancakes (there is nothing like it), millio
naires shortbread (trillionaire more like) and then started to bake with it. And I would like to share one of these receipes with you here:
Quick and easy French Apple Tart
For an 8 or 9″ pie dish, you will need:
1 jar sea salt caramel
2 or 3 eating apples
125 g plain flour
55g caster sugar
55g butter
zest of one lemon
2 egg yolks
Make the pastry by putting flour, sugar, butter and lemon zest into a food processor and whizz briefly until it forms crumbs and the butter is mixed through. Then add the egg yolks and whizz again very briefly until it comes together. Pull together with you hand, knead briefly and lightly into a ball, wrap in paper and place in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Take the jar of sea salt caramel, and warm a little either in a bowl of hot water or a couple of seconds in the microwave. It needs to be runny enough to spread over the base of the pie dish. Make sure it is spread fairly evenly across the base.
You will need 2 or 3 eating apples; remove the core, and slice thinly. Arrange them in the pie dish, laying the apple slices directly onto the caramel. Once baked the pie will be turned out, so these apples will be on the top – so arrange them prettily.
By now the pastry should be cool enough; roll it out on a floured board to about 3 or 4 mm thick; the pastry needs to lie on top of the apples, but does not need to overlap the pie dish – just fit snuggly over the apples.
Trim as necessary and place the pie in a preheated oven – hot, maybe 180C or gas mark 6. Bake for 25 to 30 mins, until the crust is crisp and a little brown.
As soon as you remove from the oven, run a knife blade around the edge of the dish to loosen the crust and quickly turn out onto a plate. The apples should be beautifully cooked: they hold their form and look slightly translucent and there should be a lovely buttery caramelly glaze
Serve hot with cream or crème fraiche