52. Caramel Apple Tart

March 01, 2020 by Sophie Faulkner in Recipe

So my friend Catherine came to visit this weekend to see Waitress starring Sara Bareilles, the writer of the show! It was amazing and wonderful and everything you could possibly want out of a musical about BAKING. So a weekend with a musical about my favourite thing with my favourite people, what else could possibly make this weekend better? MORE BAKING!!!

As Catherine has given up chocolate for lent, that was off the table, so caramel apple tart it was and oh boy was it GOOD.

Makes 1 tart

Ingredients

For the pastry

110g (4oz) butter, room temperature
50g (20z) caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt
180g (6oz) plain flour

For the caramel

75g (3oz) butter
75g (3oz) light brown sugar
1 397g can of condensed milk

For the apple filling

3 medium sized apples (Braeburns work really well)
50g (2oz) caster sugar
2 tbsp plain flour
Some extra brown sugar for sprinkling

Method

Beat the pastry sugar and butter together until creamy. Add in the vanilla extract and the eggs and beat until smooth.
Fold in the flour and salt until a dough forms.
Chill your dough in the fridge, wrapped in clingfilm for at least 15 minutes to make it easier to work with.
In a small pan melt the caramel butter and sugar on a low heat until the sugar is fully dissolved.
Add in the tin of condensed milk and bring up to a rapid boil, stirring all the time, until it is a lovely caramel colour. Boil for at least a minute.
Peel and core your apples. Then slice them into very thin slices, as thin as possible. Place them in a bowl with the apple filling sugar and flour and toss.
Preheat the oven to 175C and lightly grease your pie/tart tin. Mine is 23cm diameter.
On a lightly floured surface roll out your dough into a rough circle about 1/6” thick. Use this to line your tart tin. Trim the excess dough off, and press the dough into the sides, making sure it is fully pressed into the tin. Trim again if necessary.
Spread the caramel sauce over the bottom of the tart, you may not need all of it.
Layer up the apple pieces in any design you like, then add on some extra bits of leftover pastry in any decorative way you like, I just made some balls. Sprinkle over the extra sugar.
Bake for 40-45 minutes until golden. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before serving warm, or allow to cool completely and store in an airtight container.

51. Caramel Choc Chip Cookies

February 22, 2020 by Sophie Faulkner in Recipe

I just wanted to experiment with caramel today after seeing a recipe for caramel blondies in ‘The Violet Bakery Cookbook’ by Claire Ptak, so I made some caramel chocolate chip cookies. Not too hard to do at all, and a little step up from your normal chocolate chip!

Makes 15 - 20 cookies

Ingredients

For caramel shards

80g caster sugar
2 tbsp water

For the cookies

225g flour
Pinch of salt
3tsp baking powder
100g butter, cold and diced
120g light brown sugar
100g chocolate chips
2 eggs, beaten

Method

Start with the caramel, as you need to let this cool before you break it into shards to put in your cookies. Put the water in a pan and cover with the sugar. Heat on a low to medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. DO NOT STIR as this may cause the sugar to crystallise.
Once the sugar has fully dissolved, turn it up to a high heat and bubble away until it is a deep amber colour (around 170C for those with thermometers who want to be precise). If your sugar crystallises, turn the heat back down to low to medium and add some more water to dissolve the crystals again.
Pour your caramel onto a piece of baking paper (or silicone mat as I did) on a heat proof surface or baking tray. Allow to cool at room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 180C, and line two baking trays.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt and baking powder, and then rub in the butter until it is the consistency of bread crumbs, then mix in the sugar and chocolate chips.
Once the caramel has cooled, use the back of a knife to whack it and create shards. Use your fingers to snap into smaller pieces if necessary, but be careful, as caramel can be quite sharp.
Mix the caramel shards into the cookie mixture, then add the eggs and mix until a sticky dough forms.
Split the dough into little balls (or just hunks, I wasn’t bothered about pretty today) and place on the baking trays spaced apart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until starting to turn golden.
Allow to cool and enjoy!

Review 2 - Crosstown Doughnuts

August 14, 2018 by Sophie Faulkner in Review

My friend and I were wandering through Spitalfields market last Sunday morning on our way to Brick Lane to get some brunch. We both ended up having something completely different to what we had been craving at Brick Lane, but that was A ok. We spent a good while browsing around the market at Brick Lane, waiting for our "brunch" to settle some, and went downstairs into their vintage market, where I discovered that I desperately wanted a red leather jacket and could not find one in my size. It's always the way isn't it? You find something in a vintage sale or charity shop that you love and it's never ever in your size.

Anyway, after some moseying we decided to head back to Spitalfields and grab some dessert. Our sweet tooths were not satisfied with our very savoury brunch. On our way through the first time we had walked past a load of different stalls, but one in particular had caught my attention.

Crosstown Doughnuts.

I watch a Youtube channel called SortedFood (they're great, seriously, check them out) and they occasionally go out of the kitchen to try and find London's best *fill in the blank*. They had got some Crosstown Doughnuts in this video and I thought they looked absolutely incredible. So there was no choice really. Doughnuts it was.

What makes Crosstown Doughnuts different is that they use an incredible sourdough base to their doughnuts. It is seriously good. It just adds a different texture to the doughnut than the traditional and isn't overly sweet, which is just exactly what we needed.

I ended up having the "Sea Salt Caramel Banana" doughnut, which is made with a chocolate sourdough base, filled with banana custard and topped off with sea salt caramel and chocolate soil. It was heavenly. My friend had the "Raspberry Jam", which was apparently very good. It certainly went quickly!

They are slightly spendy for a doughnut, with mine at £4.00 and the raspberry jam at £3.50 (maybe, can't remember, but Deliveroo says these prices), but they were seriously seriously good.

Crosstown Doughnuts have a load of locations across London and do delivery of doughnut boxes to your home, office etc. I'd recommend giving them a go if you're in the market for something sweet!

Review:

Item: Sea Salt Caramel Banana Doughnut
9/10 for taste, 7/10 for cost. Yes please!

Crosstown Doughnut Details:

Hours: Mon-Fri 09:30-18:00, Sat 10:30-17:00, Sun 10:00-17:00 or until sold out. (varies location to location)

Address: Spitalfields Market, 6 Lamb St, London E1 6EA

Website: https://crosstowndoughnuts.com/

6. Mini Banoffee and Chocolate Strawberry Tarts

August 11, 2018 by Sophie Faulkner in Recipe

I made some banoffee tarts for my coworkers over the weekend to help use up some leftover caramel from a millionaire's shortbread. The shortbread didn't go great. I didn't thicken the caramel enough, so it didn't really hold together very well, but that doesn't matter in a tart!

Also helped me use up some bananas. The bananas weren't that brown when I used them, but the oxidisation of the slices made them look a bit off. Still tasty though!

The banoffee tarts went down a treat, and as it turned out, I had made a load more pastry than was necessary, so I froze the leftovers for another day. When deciding what I wanted to do with the rest of it I had a real craving for chocolate, but I didn't want to do banoffee tarts (because obviously I would do them again with how well they'd gone) and chocolate banana tarts, so I went with the classic combo, chocolate and strawberries. These went down well too, but probably not as well as fan favourites banoffee. I think my coworkers just really like bananas?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these. Two recipes for the price of one this week!

Yields 48 tarts, 24 of each.

Ingredients

One load of sweet shortcrust pastry, recipe in Lemon Tarts.
75g (2.5oz) dark sugar (I used light, so my caramel was lighter than I wanted)
75g (2.5 oz) butter
1 can condensed milk (397g)
Pinch of salt
1 banana
50g (1.75oz) butter
1 tsp honey
100g (3.5oz) dark/milk chocolate (or 50g of each)
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
100ml double cream
1 punnet of strawberries

Method

For both tarts I used the same recipe as in Mini Lemon Tarts to get my tart shells, as follows.
Preheat oven to 175C.
Roll your pastry to about 1/6-1/8" thick and use a round cookie cutter to cut out your tart cases. I used one about 3" in diameter, but you should adapt to the size of your tray/cases.
Line your tray/cases with your freshly cut circles, making sure you push them down to the bottom so that they have a flat bottom when baked.
Bake your cases for 15-20 minutes until they are golden brown and allow to cool.

Banoffee

For your banoffee "toffee" melt 75g of butter with the dark sugar and pinch of salt over a low heat until the butter is completely melted and the sugar is completely dissolved.
Add in your can of condensed milk and bring up to a rapid boil, stirring all the time.
Keep stirring and boiling your caramel mixture until it thickens and turns golden (or not if you used light sugar like me). If you're wondering if it's thickened yet, it hasn't. This should take 1-2 minutes.
Let your caramel cool a little and then pour into your tart cases, filling to the brim or just below.
Slice your banana and lay a slice on top of each of your tarts.
Chill in the fridge until the caramel is completely set.

Chocolate Strawberry

Melt your chocolate either in the microwave or a bain marie (bowl over a pot of simmering water).
Once your chocolate is completely melted, mix in the icing sugar and vanilla extract.
Whilst your chocolate is cooling a little, whip your double cream until it just holds its shape. Use an electric beater, or use it as a work out. My muscles recommend the electric beater.
Fold the melted chocolate into your whipped cream until combined, try not to knock out the air though!
Using a spoon fill your mini tarts up to the brim with your chocolate mixture, trying to smooth over the tops as you go.
Decide how you want to add your strawberries to the top. Personally I sliced the tops off, cut each one in half and then cut most of the way through each half from top to tip a couple of times so that I could fan it out to get "three" slices. I thought it looked good, but was probably more effort than necessary!
Chill your tarts, and keep chilled if they don't all go immediately!

Sorry for terrible photos, I forgot to take any until I got to work. Oops.