Recipe of the month

INGREDIENTS (6 individual pies)

Prep Time: 6 hours
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: Hard

For the Apple Compote: 

• 2 kg bramley apples, cored, peeled and diced 1.5 cm, then weighed
• 15% caster sugar (of final net weight of diced peeled cored apples)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2% flour (20 g per kilo of apples)

For the Sea Salt Caramel Sauce:

• 1 kg sugar
• 250 g glucose
• 1.5 kg double cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence
• 3 teaspoons maldon salt

For the Almond ice cream: 

• 200 g roasted chopped almonds per kg base mix

For the Vanilla ice cream base mix:

• 1 litre milk
• 0.7 litres double cream
• 0.3 kg egg yolks
• 0.3 kg caster sugar
• ½ teaspoon ice cream stabiliser
• 0.2 kg glucose syrup
• 1 tbsp vanilla pod paste

METHOD

• Puff Pastry - Cut 15 cm diameter discs.

• Apple Compote - Combine the ingredients well in a roasting dish, cover and bake at 180C for 20 mins and then stir. It may need another 10 mins. Cook until just tender, it can appear slightly undercooked. Chill the compote.

• Sea Salt Caramel Sauce - Bring the cream to the boil. Make direct caramel with the sugar, vanilla and glucose. Retard the caramel with the hot cream. Add the sea salt. Boil to make sure all sugar is dissolved, and pass.

• Assembly - Place half a cup of apple compote in the centre of the pastry, fold pleats in a circle and pinch the centre together. Brush the pie with sugar and dip the top of the pie in caster sugar. Place pies with space between them on trays in the oven, bake at 200C for 20 mins.

• Almond ice cream - Blend chopped almonds into the vanilla ice cream base before passing through the chinoise (see below).

• Vanilla ice cream base mix - Beat yolks with most of the sugar until thick and pale. Heat milk, glucose and cream. Then mix the stabiliser with a little sugar and rain into the cream while whisking. Heat until almost boiling. Pour over the yolks then return to heat until 78C. Pass through a fine chinoise. Cool down and churn in the ice cream machine.

• Final assembly - Take the pies out of the oven and let cool slightly. Then spoon over the ice cream and caramel sauce and serve.