The Cottage Smallholder

The success of Orangette’s Apricot Tart fired up my baking enthusiasm and I planned to make the same again when my mum came to lunch on Sunday. I decided to follow Orangette’s pastry recipe exactly – using all butter this time.

Fresh apricots were on the shopping list until I spotted some plump juicy blackberries in the garden. Why buy fruit when we have free fruit hanging on our fence? In twenty minutes I had picked enough to cover the base of the pie, plucked a cooking apple from our tree. I devised an alternative filling but used Orangette’s method of folding sugar through the fruit.
“How do you know that it will taste OK?” Danny was intrigued
“It should work, as long as I get the sugar level right and don’t make the apple slices too chunky.” I wasn’t wildly confident. I used less sugar as the blackberries were sweet and ripe.

As Pamela has said, the pastry tasted like biscuits. The base of the pastry was soaked in apple and blackberry juice but remained firm with a good texture, even as leftovers from the fridge next day. The blackberry and apple filling was to die for.
“This is wonderful!” Danny’s eyes were as round as organ stops as he cut a second slice.

Easy, chic and light years away from a stodgy blackberry and apple crumble.

Ingredients:

The pastry

Orangette’s superb pastry recipe is here. I bought some American measuring cups last year and they are a great investment. If you don’t have these cups there’s a useful conversion site here for converting cups to grams.

The idea of putting the pastry case in the freezer as you prepare the fruit works well. There was no need to bake the pastry blind and the sides didn’t shrink. I don’t have a flan case with a separate base. My old ceramic quiche dish was fine.

The filling ingredients:

• 350g -450g of blackberries (washed)
• 150g (or more) of cooking apples (washed, peeled and sliced. The backs of my slices were about a centimetre wide)
• 3 tbsp of caster sugar and 1 tsp of sugar to sprinkle over the fruit. If your blackberries are still a bit tart you may need a bit more sugar. This can be sprinkled over the pie when it comes out of the oven.

Method:

• Make Orangette’s pastry at least 2 hours before you need it and chill in the fridge. Roll out your pastry and line a well buttered flan dish. Follow her instructions for trimming and pressing the edges as I’m sure that this reduces the risk of pastry shrinkage. Pop the flan dish in the freezer.
• Put the fruit in a deep bowl, sprinkle over the sugar and turn the fruit to guarantee that it is well coated. Spoon the fruit gently into the pastry case and arrange. Sprinkle with a teaspoon of caster sugar and bake in a preheated oven at 190 (170 fan) for about 35-45 minutes. You may need to cover the tart with a piece of baking parchment/ or turn the oven down 10 degrees during the last 10 minutes if it is sarting to brown too much.

We served the blackberry and apple tart at room temperature with splosh of extra thick double cream. Yummy.

Can’t wait to try this with the Autumn raspberries and a dash of kirsch.