Tarte Tatin with Whisky Apples and Blackberries

Our last trip to the woods didn't really work out the way we thought. 
Due to a lack of rain and high temperatures we hardly found any mushrooms. 
What seemed to become a rather disappointing trip turned into a quite successful day otherwise.

We went home with a basket full of wild carrots, Canadian golden rut, sea buckthorn, blackberries 
(so sweet, and definitely the best blackberries I ever had!) and apples, 
that we stole picked from trees near the forest...and at least a few mushrooms.

Wil made a weirdly delicious cold carrot dill soup for which he used the wild carrots 
and our homegrown dill seeds for flavoring 
(the carrots we picked were to hard and chewy to eat, but very aromatic!). 
We used the golden rut for tea. Not sure what to do with the sea buckthorn, yet. 
It's still sitting in the fridge waiting for something to happen...

But with the apples and the blackberries I decided to make my first Tarte Tatin. 
And let me tell you, that was not that easy. 
I probably didn't choose the best recipe... 
But I'll do it again. It turned out pretty well!

Ingredients 

200g flour

50g sugar 

100g cold butter (cut in small cubes/flakes)

1 dash of salt

1 dash of cinnamon

plain flour for dusting

150-200g blackberries

1,25-1,5 kg apples (e.g. Cox orange or Granny Smith)

2 Tbsp Whisky

2-3 Tbsp lemon juice

150 g sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

75 g cold butter (cut in small cubes/flakes)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

For the shortcrust quickly mix flour, sugar,butter flakes salt and cinnamon until it comes together in a dough. 
Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Peel apples, remove the cores and cut each into 8-12 wedges. 
Put the wedges in a bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice. 
Add whisky and cinnamon.

Take a heavy-bottomed pan and evenly sprinkle the bottom with sugar. 
Place on the hob over medium heat, turning the pan frequently and making sure the sugar doesn't burn. 
Let the sugar caramelize. It's about right when it turns golden brown. 

Remove from heat and place one half of the blackberries over the bottom of the pan. 
Arrange the apple wedges on top of them and place the other half of the blackberries on top of the apple wedges. 

Dot the butter flakes on top.

Dust a clean surface and a rolling pin with flour and roll out your shortcrust until it's big enough to cover your tarte pan. 
Carefully lay the shortcrust over the top of the pan.

Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown.

Using oven gloves take a plate that is larger than the tarte pan and place it on top of the pan.

Holding the plate and the pan firmly together, quickly and carefully flip both, so that the pan is on top and the plate is on the bottom. Slowly remove the pan. The tarte should be left on the serving place with the fruits on top.

Let cool down for a few minutes.

Serve warm with vanilla ice or custard.

PS: 

I will try a different shortcrust recipe next time. The dough was really hard to roll out. It was very crumbly, which is a common problem with shortcrust, I know. But still, I had better ones before. Even though it tasted really good.

The reason could also be that I used whole wheat flour with the regular flour as well...

I saw on some websites that you can also just use a cast iron pan for it. I'll do that next time, as well!

You don't necessary need to marinate the apple wedges in whisky. It still tastes really good without it.

Best muesli in the world!

Why not start the week with a good healthy and filling muesli for breakfast tomorrow?

This here is definitely the best muesli I ever had. It's fresh, it fills you up for at least four hours and it is so good for you.

Instead of flakes you buy whole grains and get them ground up.

If you are lucky to own a flour mill, even better!

But some organic stores will do it for you, or you sometimes can even buy the ready-ground up grains.

It's important that they won't end up too fine. We don't want it to be flour but shredded grains.

I think grade 7 was what they did at Kiepert&Kutzner, where I got mine. But I don't know if this is a universal grade for grinding stuff...

However, here's what you need for one meal:

3-4 Tbsp ground grains 
the more different kinds the better!  
I used a mix with 6 different kinds.
But there is also bags with 4 or 5.
Or you just mix the ones you want
to use yourself.


1 Tbsp flax seed 
(whole or ground)


3-4 Tbsp cream


fruits  (about a handful)   
banana, apple, pear, straw- or
rasberries, melon, peach...
whatever you like and whatever
is in season.


5-10 nuts chopped        
hazelnuts are pretty good,
but again: use whatever nuts or seeds you like!


1 Tbsp rolled oats
honey
cinnamon

In a bowl, soak the grains and flax seeds in water over night (2Tbsp of water for 1 Tbsp of grains). 

The next morning stir in the cream. 

Sweeten with honey if you like an add a dash of cinnamon for the taste. 

Cut up the fruits and put them on top (I usually use about half a banana and a quarter apple and/or pear, depending on the size).

In a pan roast the chopped nuts and rolled oats until golden brown. 

Remove from stove. 

Add a dash of cinnamon and about 1 Tbsp of honey and mix everything well until all the nuts and oats are coated with honey. 

Pour the honey-nut mix over the fruits and the muesli.

Serve!

Our first rasberries! wohoo!

We bought a rasberry and a blackberry plant last year in spring but were not very lucky.
No fruits in 2010.
Even worse: the blackberry didn't make it through the Russian climate influenced winter of Berlin.
The rasberry plant however survived (maybe it fed off the blackberry by sucking out it's life energy...).
It grew strong and is now covered with berries that are now turning red.
We were already able to harvest some and, what can I say, they were delicious!
At this point I feel obliged to say thank you to Wil's enthusiasm when it comes to gardening.
He is taking care of all the plants.
A real plant-dad...
Good to have a gardener in the family.
If I had taken care of them they would probably be dead already.

Anyway, here are some pics:

Tomatoes soon, as well!

Vive la Provence!

After a couple of days of acclimatization I guess I’m finally ready for Berlin City again.

Well, I have to be anyway...

My trip to Provence was simply wonderful and a total success in terms of food, wine and love.

As I already mentioned in my last post: This region of France is a feast for your senses.

The landscape is beautiful. It smells like flowers, fruits, fresh soil and food everywhere.

It is quiet except for the lovely sound of singing birds and the crickets at night. 

And wine and food are so, so good!

By far the best country to visit in order to indulge your desire for culinary richness.

Depending on where you stay you will find vineyards who offer you wine degustations every few metres. With hundreds, probably thousands of different vineyards it’s impossible to try all wines in the region. You either have a recommendation on where to go or you just go and find out.

We did both and it was a lot of fun.

I will write a separate blog post about the wines we tried later this week...

The other great thing is that there are markets every day.

They either start in the early morning and go until 12am/1pm or at night from 6pm to 8pm.

The best market is definitely the one in Arles.

It is HUGE!

I have never been to such a fantastic market in my life.

The range of fresh products is insane!

So many vegetables and fruits: Giant artichokes, tiny artichokes, zucchinis, fresh garlic, beans, peppers, carrots, potatoes, strawberries, cherries, oranges, olives..., and all were in season. Only some were imported from Spain, which pretty much is right around the corner.

Fresh meat, sausages, bread and pastries, spices, an incredible selection of cow and goat cheese (some looked and tasted really strange, but good!).

 
 












 Oh and the fish and sea fruits section... I almost forgot about that!

 The sea is only about an hour away. Therefore everything is 
 absolutely fresh.
 

 


I bought Wil some oysters cause I don’t like them, yet. 

But according to my experience in getting used to all kinds of foods, this might change at some point.

They were the biggest and best oysters he ever had in his life and, believe it or not, 
they were only 40 CENTS A PIECE!!!!

Ok, so that was in Arles... 
you can pretty much find all these different products on the other markets as well. But let me tell you: the market in Arles is one of a kind.

We left with heavy bags filled with yumminess.

 

 















 What we did pretty much every day was: 
cruising around, stopping here and there for wine degustations or walking over a market, maybe a church, a fort or a flea market in between, paying a visit to the local butcher and cheese store, driving home, eating, drinking, falling asleep.

In one word:

PARADISE! 

Oh, and on a side note:

Wil proposed to me in a vineyard in Chateau-Neuf du Pape (where else?), and I said yes!

As you can see, Provence treated me very good and I cannot wait to go back!