Even when it's a late night meeting..
because:
a) I get the kitchen all to myself where I can spend ages experimenting different things
b) They're all guys so they don't really care about calories - therefore being excellent experimental subjects for me!!!
I mean, even if something goes a bit wrong and in my opinion, may 'not be worth the calories' - I know that they don't think that way..so Yay for me!!! :-)
I know it sounds mean but its not like I'm going to make them eat something thats...inedible :-P
Hey, if you bake and experiment - SOMEONE's gotta eat it!!!
I've been dying to make Tarte tatin. Ever since I watched it being made on Masterchef Australia, I've really been wanting to give it a go. Slight problem - I've mentioned before that the Taste Tester is not keen on cooked apples - which would be awesome to use in this upside down pie. (I still haven't understood this about him since my last post that had apples in it).
Anyway, for the past month or so I have been obsessed about oranges. Like seriously obsessed. I eat like four in a row.
And I can eat more.
I don't really understand where this craze has come from since I used to hate oranges.
Its a pretty handy obsession to have though (if that makes sense)...because whenever I make dessert and people have it late at night - (which is obviously not a good idea) I'm pretty happy with my oranges.
No guilt.
How awesome is that??
I hope it lasts.
Anyway so back to my baking story. Since I'm in love with oranges at the moment, it only made sense to use oranges.
So I chopped them up and created a tart.
I didn't have a recipe so I just went with what I had seen them do on tv.
I think it worked and I was pretty happy with the results :-)
I served it warm with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.
The caramel sauce was pretty awesome too. Thank you Hershey's people for that!!
Anyway next time I make it, I'm going to use apples and we'll see how that turns out.
Ingredients: (I don't usually measure stuff so I'm going to do my best to try and estimate)
2 oranges (you can use apples, peaches, pineapples, bananas- or any fruit you want)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean or a bit less
Ready made (and ready rolled cos I'm lazy) puff pastry (roll it out to around 0.5cm and cut it slightly larger sized than the bottom of the pan that you are using)
Butter
Method:
Sprinkle the sugar and the vanilla on a heavy bottomed pan (which is suitable for the oven too) and place it on medium heat.
Let the sugar caramelise a bit..and become a nice goldeny brown (note: I burnt the first batch of caramel and it was literally a matter of seconds) and then remove it from the heat and arrange the sliced fruit on the syrup. Be very careful because you do NOT want this caramel syrup to get in contact with your skin while its hot. Also - Please don't try and taste it no matter how tempting it may be!!!
Place the rolled out pastry on top of the mixture and using a spoon tuck in the edges of the pastry around the caramel/fruit mixture so it encases it nicely.
Using a fork or a knife, pierce the pastry a few times and bake it on Gas mark 7 for about 20 minutes until the pastry is cooked and you can see the caramel bubbling at the edges.
Remove it from the oven and let it stand for about a minute and then VERY carefully (protect your hands with an oven mitt or a tea towel from the bubbling hot caramel) place a plate larger than the pan you cooked in on top of the pan and flip it over.
Brush butter on it generously.
Let it cool slightly and then serve with ice cream or whipped cream and enjoy :-)
Keep smiling :-)
-S
