I hope you've missed us...

Hello sunny (but slightly-windy-and-still-freezing) afternoon!

We are SO sorry for leaving it so long...as you know I have been en France, and then when I got back Fia jetted off to London and then home for a week, whilst I promptly decided to become very ill...

so apologies...

Fia has an extremely tempting chocolate cake recipe coming very soon, but I thought I'd share with you one fabulous part of my trip to Lyon to visit my beautiful friend.

I had no idea how pretty Lyon was.

Anyway, as I mentioned previously, I have decided to refrain from 'unnatural' sugars recently, and so far its going pretty well. But when in France... you simply cannot resist the sweet cakes. So it became 'I'm off sugar, I get a treat once a month(?! - im crazy i KNOW) and it doesnt apply outside of the UK. GENIUS.

Why thankyou...

So I was only there for five days, but on the first day I landed and we promptly went to 'Paul' for a yummy coffee and croissant. You can't go to France without eating a croissant. Delicious.

Later went we retreated to my friend's apartment, we decided to do a bit of baking, just to get into the 'scrummy sweet' spirit!

Here is my recipe for an extremely easy Tarte Tatin...

You'll need

• A flan style baking tin, one of those ones with the pretty edges
• About 10 apples, I think. (If you use all sweet apples, don't put in as much sugar, otherwise try and use a mixture of 'sweet' and 'sour' apples
• Some kind of brown sugar
• 100g Plain flour
• 50g Butter

(Thats it, you can probably just go and make it if you've got some spare apples!)
   
First, peel the apples and slice into flat pieces (cut half, then half again, core and cut into segments)

Grease the whole flan tin with butter, and cut out a circle of greaseproof paper to fit in the bottom, put that in and grease that too.

Sprinkle a good layer of sugar into the bottom, and then arrange the apples into a pretty pattern until they're layered up. Use as little or as much as you like/have..

Bring together the flour and the butter in a big bowl with clean hands, rub the butter into the flour and work it into a soft dough ball. Add more flour or butter if you feel it needs it. Don't panic!

Now, you have two options here. you could either chill the pastry if you have time, or even freeze it for a bit. Then I reckon you can try and grate the pastry over the apples, just so it sinks in and gives a good coverage.

Or, if you're slightly lazy and got less time, just roll the pastry out into the right shape so it fits over the apples. Press it over nicely, then pop into a preheated oven at 180*C, for about 40 mins. 

Take it out of the oven when the pastry looks golden, and check to see if it is not 'soggy'.

Voile!

Now, you are 'supposed' to eat this chilled, I think, but it is absolutely delicious straight from the oven. Don't eve bother cutting it...just grab a friend, coffee, and a fork...

Tell me what you think!

Do you have a treat that sounds hard but is really really easy?!

Soph x