Apple tarte tartin

My mums apple trees have had a huge crop of apples this year. I'm going to give chutney a try this week with the latest bag. I made this tarte a couple of weeks ago to take to a friends house for lunch, the recipe came from the Waitrose magazine. I don't have a frying pan that I can put in the oven, (note to self for Christmas) so I used a cake tin with a loose bottom. As a result I lost a lot of the lovely caramel sauce, as it seeped out the bottom of the tin.

Ingredients
Serves 6
150g caster sugar
1 cinnamon sticks
1 star anise
50g butter, cubed
4-6 apples, peeled, cored and each cut into 6 wedges
215g sheet rolled puff pastry

Method
Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Put the cinnamon, star anise and 5 tbsp water in a 20cm ovenproof frying pan and set over a low heat. Once the sugar has dissolved turn the heat to high and bubble for about 5 mins, until you have an amber caramel. Take off and remove and discard the spices, then melt the butter into the caramel, stirring.
Arrange the apples in the pan so all the caramel is covered. Cut a 20cm circle of puff pastry and prick all over with a fork. Carefully place the pastry over the apples, tucking it in at the edges.
Bake for 20 mins until the pastry is puffed up and golden.
Remove the tarte from the oven, let it stand for 5 minutes, before inverting onto a
plate.Serve at once with cream.


A very nice accompaniment would be,

VANILLA CREAM
250ml double cream
100g icing sugar
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out.