Thursday, November 29, 2007

Sea-buckthorn and apple tart



Ooops. Not only was I late with this month's Daring Bakers submission, I am also late with my WTISIM entry. Jeanne has - naughtily - chosen Topless Tarts as the theme. I made something similar to my toffee apple tart with cranberries from January. Remember the sea-buckthorn sorbet and sea-buckthorn jelly? Well, we have got lots of frozen sea-buckthorn berries in the freezer (courtesy of my grandma), so I decided to try the same toffee apple tart recipe, but replacing cranberries with sea-buckthorn berries. Furthermore, I was keen to try out the dried sea-buckthorn powder* I bought recently..

The resulting tart was scrumptious - sweet toffee apples with tart sea-buckthorn berries nicely complementing each other, plus the berries giving some extra colour to the cake. Try it!

Sea-buckthorn and Apple Tart (topless, of course)
(Õunapirukas astelpajumarjade ja astelpajujahuga)
Serves 8



Crust:
100 g butter
150 g plain/all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cold water

Filling:
4-5 smaller apples, cored and sliced
a handful of sea-buckthorn berries
7 Tbsp soft brown sugar
1 Tbsp potato starch
1 Tbsp dried sea-buckthorn berry powder

extra butter, for topping

Start by making the crust. Mix flour and sugar in a bowl, add cold cubed butter and rub between your fingers until you've got fine crumbs. Add the water (start with 1 Tbsp, as that may just be enough) to bring the pastry together. Form into a flat disc and place into the fridge for 30 minutes to cool.
Roll out the pastry on a slightly floured surface (or between two sheets of clingfilm) until 3-4 mm thick. Press into a 24 cm pie dish. Blind bake for 10 minutes in a 200 C oven.
Remove the tart crust from the oven, cover with apples and sprinkle with sea-buckthorn berries (no need to defreeze them).
Mix sugar, potato starch and berry powder in a small bowl, then sprinkle over the apples. Dot with some butter.
Bake in a 200 C oven for another 15-20 minutes, until the apples are softened and the sugar mixture has melted into a delicious toffee.
Cool a little, then transfer to a cake stand.
Dust with icing sugar before serving.

* Dried sea-buckthorn powder is exactly what it says on the packet - dried berries (incl seeds and skins), ground into a fine powder. They're full of vitamins and minerals. You can sprinkle these into your breakfast yogurt, add into fruit and berry smoothies, stir into hot cereal etc.

9 comments:

Julie said...

Kudos for using sea-buckthorns--a highly sustainable crop! I've never tried them, but they're experimenting with growing them here in Arizona, and I'm looking forward to seeing some soon!

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lobstersquad said...

well, I´ll try. next time I go to Estonia I´ll be sure to stock up.

Meeta K. Wolff said...

Topless is the best way to go for tarts. I love this as it uses an ingredient I am not all that familiar with. WOW! it does look scrumptious!

Kevin Kossowan said...

Wow...never even heard of sea-buckthorn, making this sound tremendously exotic.

Susan from Food Blogga said...

Oh, my! Those sound and look heavenly, Pille! They make up for any tardiness!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Bring this late to my place any day! Topless . . . I guess I thought all tarts were ;))
This looks truly spectacular!

Jeanne said...

Wow - I'm impressed! You've found yet another way to use sea buckthorn :) Before your posts I had never heard of it but now I could probably pick it out in a police line-up. All I need to do now is taste it... This sounds marvellous - thanks for daring to go topless for this month's WTSIM :)

Pille said...

Julie - thank you! I do hope the Arizona sea-buckthorn berries will be available to you soon!

Min - welcome to Nami-nami, and thank you!

Lobstersquad - I cannot ship you any fresh berries, as they might perish on the way, but I'd be happy to send you some sea-buckthorn 'raisins', if you're interested?

Meeta - have you come across these in Germany? You'll find a (long!!!) list of possible German names here
.

Kevin - they are great-tasting somewhat sour berries, very interesting.

Susan - I sure hope so :)

Tanna - you're so naughty!!

Jeanne - are you implying I'm going OTT with sea-buckthorn berries? Hope not, as I've got many other recipes in store...