Caramelised calvados apples and granny Smith purée with vanilla ice cream and a filo triangle recipe. This is a really simple dish to put together. If you want, you can have everything made a day in advance and then all you need to do is reheat the apples on a medium heat in a small saucepan.
IngredIenTs:
serVes 4
2 large Braeburn apples 1⁄2 lemon (optional) 100g caster sugar
50g butter
4 tablespoons calvados apple brandy
for The fIlo TrIAngle
1 sheet of filo pastry
10g melted butter
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1⁄2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
To serVe
40g granny Smith apple purée
4 scoops of vanilla ice cream
meThod
Start by peeling and coring the apples. Cut them in half, then in quarters and finally cut each quar- ter into half. You should be left with eight wedges per apple. If you are afraid of the apples going brown, squeeze some lemon juice over them.
add the sugar and butter to a large frying pan on a high heat. Allow them to dissolve and colour on the high heat until you reach a toffee colour you are happy with. Do not be tempted to stir the caramel at any stage as it will split and you’ll have to start again. Just lightly swirl it every now and again. Remember caramel becomes extremely hot, so be very careful.
Once the caramel has reached a toffee colour, add the apple wedges to the pan. Reduce the heat to low and colour the apples on each side. This takes about 2–3 minutes. When you are happy with the colour of the apples, add the Calvados to flambé. To do this you can either tip the pan over your gas flame, or light a match over the pan. This basically cooks off the alcohol and gives a delicious musty sweet flavour.
Once flambéed, place the apples and caramel onto a steel tray and allow to cool as quickly as they can, so they don’t overcook. Reheat in a saucepan over a medium heat before serving.
Preheat the oven to 180oC/400oF/gas mark 6.
For the filo triangle garnish you have to work fast or else the filo pastry will dry out. First, cut the filo pastry right down the middle. Now, starting at the corner, with your knife cut out a nice 45-degree triangle. Repeat, cutting out triangles all along the filo sheet until you’ve used it all up. you may have too many, but it’s always good to have extras as they can break fairly easily.
You’ll need two flat trays that are the same size. Brush each triangle with melted butter and then lay them all onto a sheet of parchment paper on top of one of the trays. Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and then sprinkle from a height over the filo pastry.
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