I was looking for some light apple pudding, just right to have a piece, be delighted for a few minutes, and finish guilt-free with a cup of esspresso. I came up with a perfect combination of light, a little salty pastry (yes, salty, check it out with sweetness of meringue - wow factor), soury apples and light as feather, sweet crunchy meringue. You can make pastry in advance and keep in the fridge or freezer. I usually make double the recipe below and save half for next time. You can use this pastry with savoury tarts too. Very handy with me being a little lazy cleaning up after cooking something floury.
For pastry shell:
125 g plain flour
75 g margarine (not spread, some hard variety like Stork)
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp flour
1-2 tbsp very cold water
Sieve the flour into a bowl or onto worktop, make a hole in the middle and trow in cold margarine, cubed. Rub into flour to get a crumbly texture. You can mix it in the food processor too. Add salt, egg yolk and cold water and knead quickly to make a dough ball. Roll out (you can
dust the dough with a little flour or flatten it a little and roll between 2 layers of cling film) so the shape is about 1 cm bigger than the tart form. It doesn't have to be very even, we can fix it later. Move the dough into the form using a rolling pin or on the foil (you have to remove it before baking of course). Press down with a thumb, cut off any excess pastry and use it to fix missing bits around the edges. Pierce the bottom with a fork a few times, put in the fridge until the oven gets hot, 180C. Then line it with baking paper, fill with baking beans (or any dried beans or even rice will do). Bake for 15 min, then remove paper with the beans and bake for another 12-15 min, until golden.
For apple filling:
3-4 cooking apples
a handful of raisins
1 tbsp plain flour
mixed spice or vanilla essence
2 heaped tbsp light muscovado sugar
Core and peel the apples, slice them quite thinly, then mix with other ingredients.
For meringue topping:
1 or 2 egg whites
2-3 tbsp icing sugar
Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until quite stiff. Add sugar and beat for another 2-3 min, until stiff and glossy.
Now transform the apples onto pastry shell, spread meringue mixture on top and bake for about 45 min in 160C, until the top gets lightly golden. Enjoy!
