Easy winter apple tart

Ingredients (for one small tart to feed 3-4 people)

• 1/2 a portion of this pastry recipe
• 2 small apples – cored, quartered then cut into thin slices
• 2 T melted butter, plus another 1 T butter
• 3 T brown sugar, plus another 2 t brown sugar
• 1/2 t each of ground cinnamon and cardamom
• 1/4 t ground nutmeg
• Vanilla ice cream to serve

Method:

• Heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius
• Grease a 25 x 18cm baking tin.
• Place the 2 T melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg into a bowl and stir to combine.
• Add the sliced apples to the sugar and spice mixture and mix thoroughly, coating each slice with as much of the mixture as possible.
• Roll out the pastry into the tin, pressing into the edges.
• Arrange the spice and sugar-coated apple slices into overlapping rows on top of the pastry. Dot the remaining 1 T butter on top of the apples and sprinkle over the 2 teaspoons of brown sugar.
• Place the tart into the oven and bake until the apples and pastry are cooked and golden – check after 30 minutes, and give an extra 10-15 minutes if still needed.
• Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

At this cold and dark time of year, I like to keep my fruit and vitamin consumption up, including through warming, spiced apple tart like this one. A request to bring pudding to a shared dinner was the perfect excuse to make the most of some wintry apply goodness. Seeing as it’s cold and dark, I for one don’t want to be spending an inordinate amount of time standing over a stove when I could be wrapped up in a cosy blanket, so this recipe is nice and simple. It riffs off the style of more sophisticated galette or tarte tartin, but is a lazier version, without caramel or complex pastry. I do admit, the home-made pastry could seem a bit of a faff but it’s just the lovely, straightforward Edmonds recipe. If you can make scones, you can definitely make pastry of the right quality to bake underneath some spiced apples. If you just can’t face making pastry, or you don’t want to be away from your cosy blanket for any longer than you have to, the bought stuff would be more than fine. And either way, the result is a lovely crisp pastry base topped with spicy-sweet apples and goes brilliantly with a generous dollop of vanilla ice cream.