Upside-down apple tart

I’m rather annoyed I missed apple day to post this one on! http://www.commonground.org.uk being a big fan of English Apples, and any excuse them. This recipe does just that, and being homemade, it can easily be made egg-free, dairy free- and lets face it there are not many egg-free, dairy free puddings around. Cooking puddings yourself also saves money, and is very satisfying!

This one is a vegan adaptation of the Upside-down apple tart, with orange and oatmeal pastry, from ‘The Almost Vegetarian Cookbook’ (sums me up nicely) by Josceline Dimbleby

The tart can be made in advance, kept in the tin and reheated (good for parties then) The cardamom, honey and orange give a lovely flavour…

Ingredients

125g (4oz) plain flour
50g (2oz) fine oatmeal
75g (3oz) caster sugar
half tsp salt
125g (4oz) dairy free marg
finely grated zest of 1 orange
1-2 tbs freshly squeezed orange juice
750g (1 and half 1lb) apples
4tbs lemon juice
2 tbs fine-cut orange marmalade
2 tbs clear honey
seeds of 4-5 cardamon pods, ground finely

method

to make pastry, put the flour, oatmeal, caster sugar and salt into a food processor and whiz just once to mix. Add the marg to the flour mixture to the food processor and whiz again briefly, just until the mixture resembles rough breadcrumbs. Add the finely grated orange zest and with the motor running, pour in enough orange juice, whizzing very briefly, for the dough to begin to stick together. Pat the pastry into a ball, cover it with clingfilm and leave in the fridge to chill whilst you prepare the apples..

Smear the base and sides of a 19-20cm (7 and half to 8 inc sandwich tin with a little marg (don’t use a tin with a loose base) and preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200oC/400oF. Peel the apples and. Slice the apples in half and using a very sharp knife, cut out the cores. Slice the apples thinly in half moon slices, putting the slices into a bowl and sprinkling them immediately with lemon juice as you cut them to prevent them discolouring. Put the marmalade and honey into a bowl with the ground cardamon seeds, stir together and spread the mixture over the bottom of the buttered sandwich tin. Next arrange the apple slices neatly overlapping in the tin.

Take the pastry from the fridge and using a well floured rolling pin, roll it out very lightly on a floured board the size of the cake tin.
Carefully roll back the pastry over the rolling pin and place it on top of the apples in the tin. If pastry should break at all, don’t worry, simply press it together. Press the overlapping pastry edge down into the sides of the tin and pierce two holes in the top to allow the steam to escape.

Cook the tart in the centre of the preheated oven for 25mins, then turn down to gas mark 3/160oC/325oF for 30mins. Finally, turn off the oven, open the door slightly and leave the tart in the oven for a further 10-15 mins.

To serve: slide a knife around the edges of the tin and carefully turn the tart out on a flat serving plate. Serve tart warm with dairy free custard or cream…

Today’s illustration © Lois Blackburn www.loisblackburn.co.uk