TARTE TATINTASTIC!!

The plums looked great at the supermarket recently so I bought a job lot!  Then came home and had to decide what to do with them!!

I made a batch of my plum chutney (photos not great) and then decided to use some of my precious all butter puff pastry to make a plum tarte tatin - and I have to say it was pastry well used.  Sometimes I find tarte tatin too sweet and cloying, but as the plums weren't too ripe this dessert had just the right sweet, tart combination.

I used David Roche's recipe (from the Avoca demonstration) and it worked perfectly.  I allowed my sugar to brown much further than ever before - very proud I kept my nerve as I find molten sugar quite scary!!

Here's what I did.

Melt the sugar and water (without stirring) until the syrup becomes a deep golden brown colour.

Pour the caramel into an oven proof dish (best of you have a pan that can go in the oven - but I don't) then arrange the halved and stoned plums as attractively as possible (more important with a round pan) over the sweet juices.  I then cooked the plums for 15 minutes as they were under ripe and I wanted them 20 minutes away from being done before I added the pastry.

                       Mr Brownieville thought I should serve it like this.

                                          But I had to do as instructed!!



Plum Tarte Tatin

75ml           water
100g           caster sugar (I used vanilla sugar and it imparted a lovely flavour)
20g             butter
8                 plums (or however many your pan/dish will take)
250g           puff pastry


Preheat oven to 200 C

Heat the sugar and water until it becomes a golden colour, do not stir as this will crystallize the caramel.
Stir in the butter.
Arrange the fruit in the pan in which you have made the caramel (if it is ovenproof) otherwise pour the caramel into an oven proof dish.  Arrange the fruit as nicely as possible.  Cook if necessary.
Roll out the pastry to the shape of your dish, but slightly larger.
Place the pastry over the fruit and tuck in the edges.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden and the juices bubble up at the sides.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 30 minutes.
Carefully flip the tart onto your serving plate.

I served this with home made rum ice-cream, but vanilla would be great.

Enjoy!