apple tart with lavender cream

ingredient;
6 bramley apples
• 40g butter
• 500g ready-made puff

pastry
• 1 egg
• 4 tbsp caster sugar
• Icing sugar (for dusting)

Lavender cream
• 400g crème fraîche or double cream
• 1 tbsp fresh lavender flowers
• 1 tbsp lavender honey

 method:
1 Peel, core and roughly chop 2 apples. Place in a saucepan with butter and cook over moderate heat for 20 minutes or until soft and of a puréed consistency. Allow to cool.

2 Peel, core and quarter remaining apples, then cut into thin slices.

3 Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6. Roll pastry out to 3mm thick then, using a large dinner plate as a guide, cut out a 30cm-diameter circle. Place on lightly greased baking tray and score an inner circle 1½cm from the pastry edge to prevent rising. Spread the purée over the inner circle of the base and place the remaining apple slices in a tight concentric circle. Beat the egg with 1 tbsp water and brush the pastry edge with the egg wash. Sprinkle the tart with 1 tbsp sugar, then bake for 20 minutes.

4 While tart is cooking, heat 3 tbsp sugar and 3 tbsp water over a medium heat in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves and mixture reduces a little and becomes syrupy.

5 For lavender cream, combine honey and crème fraîche in a bowl. Just before serving, sprinkle with lavender flowers.

6 Remove tart from oven, brush with sugar syrup, then turn up oven to 220C/gas 7 and cook for a further 10 minutes or until top begins to caramelise. Remove from oven and leave to cool. Dust with icing sugar and serve with lavender cream.