Apple, almond and syrup tart

By Sarah Cook, Olive

A beautiful, crowd-pleasing dessert that makes the most of sticky golden syrup, sweet apples, and both ground and whole almonds. Best served with ice cream.

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Yield: serves 6-8

Ingredients

• ready-rolled shortcrust pastry 320g sheet


• ground almonds 100g


• apples 6 small


• lemon 1 large, zested and juiced


• golden syrup 125g


• vanilla paste or extract 1 tsp


• nutmeg a grating


• egg 1 beaten, to glaze
• whole almonds 30g, roughly chopped


• crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream to serve

Method

Step 1

Carefully roll out the pastry on its wrapping paper until it increases by 3-4cm widthways and lengthways. Flip the pastry onto a lined baking sheet and discard the paper.

Step 2

Sprinkle the ground almonds evenly over the pastry, leaving a 4cm border around the edges.

Step 3

Peel, halve and core the apples, then brush half the lemon juice over the rounded sides.

Step 4

Sit each apple half on a chopping board, rounded-side up, and slice into the apple at ½ cm intervals but not cutting all the way through. Sit the apples over the almond layer, then fold the pastry border up and over the edges of the apples – pinching the pastry together to ruffle and hold in place.

Step 5

Whisk together the remaining lemon juice with the golden syrup, lemon zest, vanilla and nutmeg. Brush some of the lemony syrup over the apples, then chill the tart for 20 minutes.

Step 6

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4 and put another flat baking sheet (or a pizza stone) inside. Brush the pastry edges with beaten egg, then drizzle the rest of the lemony syrup over the apples and scatter with the chopped almonds. Sit the tart tray on top of the reheated sheet and bake for 40-50 minutes or until the pastry is golden and crisp, and the apples tender. Rest for 10 minutes before eating with crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream.

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