Gordon Ramsay's Apple & Pear Crumble Tart

A perfect tart for Christmas! With notes of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg - apples, pears, a delicious layer of almond frangipane, crisp pastry and a crumble topping.

I'm not too happy about sweet pastry when you have lot's of sweetness in a recipe, it's just too much and sugar overload. A well made shortcrust pastry base, baked blind until crisp is my preferred method.

I can't see any reason why this tart shouldn't freeze successfully, it can be sliced into portions when it is fridge cold and then put in the freezer. It also heats up successfully in the microwave. The tart is a real winner and will feed a crowd too. Simply serve with ice cream or pouring cream.

Gordon Ramsay has given us some fabulous recipes for desserts and this apple, pear and almond frangipane tart with a crumble topping is amazing.

The recipe is what I call high faff but it can be made in stages to lighten the faff element. I used my dicing gadget to make perfect dice of apples and pears because my knife skills are too clumsy to do this and I would probably end up in A&E!


Serves: 8

You will need: 34cm x 11cm oblong tin greased.

Filling: 4 Braeburn apples peeled and diced, 4 pears peeled and diced, a large pinch of ground ginger and cinnamon, a grating of nutmeg, 25g butter, juice of half a lemon.

Crumble: 160g unsalted butter, 2tbsp soft brown sugar, 150g plain flour, 80g demerara sugar, 25g roasted chopped hazelnuts.

Almond Frangipane: 50g butter, 50g icing sugar, 1 egg, 10g flour, 50g ground almonds.

Pastry: 220g plain flour, 50g lard, 50g butter, 3tbsp cold water

1. For the pastry: Put the flour, lard and butter in a food processor, blitz until breadcrumbs, add the cold water and process until the mixture comes together. Tip onto cling film, form into a flattened circle. Cover with clingwrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2. Roll out the pastry, line the tin and bake blind using Delia's method.
3. To make the frangipane: Cream the butter and icing sugar together, slowly mix in the egg, flour and ground almonds. Chill for 2 hours before using.
4. To make the filling: toss the diced fruit in lemon juice to stop them browning. Take the fruit and mix with the spices. Heat a knob of the butter until foaming, then add the fruit and toss for about 30 seconds. Add the soft brown sugar and cook until the fruit is soft, but not broken down. Cool.
5. To make the crumble: Rub the remaining butter into the flour and stir in the demerara sugar and hazelnuts. Fill the tart with the frangipane, then fruit, and top with the crumble mix.
6. Heat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°F/Gas 4. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

GORDON RAMSAY'S MEATBALLS WITH SPICED TOMATO SAUCE

According to Google, in 2008 meatballs come in at No 2, on their list of the fastest rising recipes for the UK. I couldn't help smiling when I saw this - I had no idea they were so popular.

In last weekends Times Magazine, Gordon Ramsay tells us, out of all the recipe requests he gets, meatballs is still the most popular.

I didn't have these as a child, I didn't feed these to my children, and it's very rare for me to even consider making them.

I've only ever made meatballs occasionally - Nigella's recipe, Jo Pratt's and now Gordon's. All of them went beautifully with pasta. I am forgetting, of course, that I have made lamb kofta meatballs to go with curry a few times.

The quantity of meat used in the original recipe was reduced, Gordon uses 500g each of beef and pork mince to feed 6 people. I used 250g each of beef and pork mince, this made 24 meatballs (enough for two people for two meals). I made the full quantity of tomato sauce though. We had half of the tomato sauce and meatballs for diiner and I froze the other half for a rainy day.

Sage and parsley was used for the meatballs, if I was to make this again, I would perhaps use rosemary and parsley or thyme and parsley. I wasn't too sure about the sage and parsley combo.

LEMON TART BRULEE

'You Challenge Gordon Ramsay' is a new series in Olive Magazine where a reader challenges Gordon Ramsay to see if their recipe against his, in a blind test by three members of the Olive Magazine reader panel, matches up to Gordon's. Of course Gordon won, but only by one point!

The lemon tart has melted dark chocolate brushed over the cooked pastry case and this is then allowed to cool before adding the lemon filling. I chose not to use the chocolate because I wasn't too sure about messing about with a classic recipe. The purpose of the chocolate, although not written about in the recipe, is I presume to keep the pastry base from going soft. Next time I make the tart though, it will definitely be with the chocolate base!

The pastry can be made in the food processor, a quick whizz and it's done. The pastry is quite sticky and I decided to roll the pastry out between two sheets of cling film to make life easier.

If you decide to have a go at making this tart try not to over cook the filling, but leave it at the wobble stage in the centre.


When the tart had cooled I dusted it with icing sugar and then my husband ran an industrial blowtorch over the surface to give a brulee effect! You don't think I'm going to use that thing, do you?!!! If you scan down to the end of this posting you will see him having some brulee fun.

The filling had lots of lemon flavour and not too sweet, the pastry was very similar to shortbread. I'll definitely be making this again - but not this side of Christmas!

OLIVE MAGAZINE - October 2008 Page 61 The tart serves 8.