Apple Upside Down Tart

I have too many apples.

There must be a bumper harvest of apples because the supermarkets are flooded with them.  They are everywhere and really cheap a the moment.  So, in my recent frenzy of food shopping, I bought way too many of them.  

I wanted to bake a cake but I had given away all my baking stuff last year to a recently married girlfriend who is really into baking.  Since I was not able to cook then, I gave them all away to her.  Now I just feel bereft and slightly at a loss.  But I was still determined.  If we have to go old school, that's just what we will do.  If our grandparents could roast & bake with no fancy stuff back then, so can I.

I have no springform anything and all I have is an old fashioned aluminium cake tin.  It will have to do.  I don't even have a whisk!  OK, grab the fork.  No mixing bowl?  I will use the microwave bowl.  No rolling pin?  I will use my wine bottle.  Hic!  Alkie makes baking easy ... hic ...

Anyway, I can't bake a cake as I do not want to end up eating out of my cake tin.  Then I remembered I used to bake a pineapple upside down cake for friends even though I can't eat that myself.  Alrighty.  Oh shucks ... my mixer/blender is kaput.  Hmmm, OK, an upside down apple tart then.  I remember I had a recipe for that somewhere.

After a search, I found it.

But of course I had to modify it.

Apple Upside Down Tart

Pastry -

50g/2 oz/4tbsp butter, softened

40g/1 1/2 oz/3 tbsp caster sugar

1 egg

115g/4oz/1 cup plain flour

Pinch of salt

Here's where I modified it.  I added 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder & a pinch of pepper

Apple Filling -

75g/3oz/1/4 cup butter/softened

75g/3oz/1/2 level cup light muscovado sugar

9 red Fiji apples, peeled, cored and thickly sliced

Vanilla ice cream

1.  Cream the butter and sugar for the pastry.  I went at it with just a fork.  Yes, I have muscles on my arms.  Do I need to prove it like this?  No ... *whine* ... sigh.  Anyway, cream it till it is pale and creamy.

2.  Beat in the egg.  *Still hurting here, people ... beat, beat, beat ... with a fork!*

3.  Sift in the flour, salt, cinnamon powder and pepper and mix to a soft dough.  

I discovered I did not have a sieve so I had to painstakingly sprinkle the dry mixture over.  You do this by hitting your cup gently and continuously into the bowl.  It's a soft dough when it leaves the sides of the bowl yet feel relatively soft and moist without greasing you up.

4.  Knead it and then wrap it up in cling wrap and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.  Do not over-chill.  If you do, take it out to thaw so don't panic.  You want the dough to be firm but not hard.

5.  Grease a 24cm cake tin ... actually any size works.  If you have leftovers, save them for another pie.  Do not get too hung up on this stuff.  I sometimes make mini tarts, squares or cookies with the leftover dough.  Kids love them.  Place 50g/2oz/4tbsp of the butter in the tin.

6.  Place the tin on the stove and melt the butter.  Once it is melted (make sure not to clarify it), remove from the heat.

7.  Sprinkle the whole base of the tin with 50g/2oz/tbsp of the muscovado sugar. 

8.  Here is where I messed up.  I had bought rather ripe apples instead nice, slightly unripe apples or green apples.  So they were juicy.  Real juicy.  Too juicy.

Arrange the apple in layers.  I tend to do the traditional fan pattern but really, you should not get hung up on this.  As long as you cover the tin, you're good.  Just try to the last layer to be even or you will get a lopsided tart.

9.  Sprinkle with the rest of the muscovado sugar and dot with the rest of the butter.  I did not use up all the sugar as my apples are quite sweet so I deducted about 1 tbsp.

10.  Preheat the oven to 230 deg C/450 deg F.  My oven is a little lame so I have to raise the temperature to 240 deg C.

11.  Place the cake tin over the stove again over low heat for about 15 mins.  The recipe says "for 15 mins, until a light golden caramel forms on the bottom".  Er, excuse, how am I supposed to see this?

I say this because here's where I really messed up.  My apples were so juicy, they started sweating all over the caramel mix, diluting the hell out of it.  So my caramel could not set.  Which I did not realise till way later as I could not see this with all the apples on top.  And I have not baked in such a long time, my baking 6th sense is still on vacation.  Bah.

Also, I was in a rush to go to work so I ignored my intuition and removed the tin from the stove at exactly 15 mins even though something told me it wasn't time.  That's why I sometimes have trust issues with recipes.  They lie.  *Rocking back and forth on the spot*

12. Dust your working surface with some flour.  Slap that dough down and get rolling.  Roll it out to about the same size as your tin.  

13.  Pick that baby up gently and place it on top of the cake tin, on top of the apples.  I cut the leftover edges with a knife and then tuck the edges into the apples like a blankie, slightly curling downwards towards the base along the sides.  Hope that makes sense.

14.  Bake for about 25-30 mins till the pastry is golden.  I had to bake mine for about 35 mins.  

15.  Remove from heat and let stand for about 5 mins.  You have to let it stand so things have time to firm out otherwise you gonna have problems when you do the great reversi later.

16.  Place an upturned plate (come now, make it bigger, not smaller than the cake tin ... *shakes head*) on top of the cake tin.  Hold it firmly down together with a dish towel (why?  'cos it's hot and you might slip!) and FFFFLLLIPPP! Turn the thing over so that the tart falls out upside down on the plate.

Here's the travesty.  When I did this, a massive gush of caramel juice burst over the plate, all over the counter, dripping tragically onto the floor.  Darn it!  Clean up time!  On the double!  There was a mild flurry of panic as I cleaned up.  And worse, it meant I had no caramel topping!  Nooooooo!

Even worse, because the apples were so ripe, they were way too mushy and so slip slided all to one side during the Great Reversi, spoiling my beautiful fan pattern and giving me a mushy, lopsided tart.

Conk.

I had to gingerly pour out all the excess caramel juice (which I saved ... gonna make a caramel cream sauce from that later) and dry out the cake in the oven again, cooking it for another 15 mins to get it less soggy.  And even then I was not happy with it.

Especially when I realised I had forgotten a modification I had wanted to make to the recipe.  I had prepared some slivered almonds which I had planned to add to the apple filling.

Conk.  Conk.

So the tart was delish if soggy.  I ate it with some vanilla ice cream after dinner and was fairly appeased.  But now I feel a compulsion to make another and get it right.  I really have to resist as I made it to avoid wasting stuff.  If I want to make another I would have purchase more stuff.  Which will defeat the original intention.

Resist.  Resist.

Conk.