Recipe For Success: TV Chef, Baker And Food Writer, Catherine Leyden Shares Her Recipe For Good Old Fashioned Apple Tart

One thing that we’ve noticed over the years is that food plays such an important role our in lives and not just for fuel but for entertaining and providing us with fond memories too.

We’ve chatted to some of Ireland’s well-known faces to discover their favourite dishes and meals, be it from their childhood or simply something they like to rustle up at home.

Catherine Leyden showcase her hands on, no fuss, and easy to follow style of baking each week on TV3’s Ireland AM. She also works closely Odlums’ expert team of bakers, and their latest collaboration is their new range of Bake Your Own Mixes, with scone mixes and five varieties of tasty bread mixes to choose from.

Here in her own words, Catherine tells us why an old fashioned apple tart is still one of her favourite deserts:

“This is one of the first recipes I ever baked. In our house we all grew up watching our mother and grandmother bake apple tart and I was always dying to get stuck in. There was and still is the cloves in apple tart debate, I have to say I think those who like them are few and far between!

Apple tart after a family Sunday lunch is always my favourite time of the week! I come from a big family of ten children and there are lots of nephews and nieces and we try to get as many together on Sundays as possible and it wouldn’t be the same without my apple tart. I also enjoy passing on the tradition of baking with Odlums to my nieces and nephews.”

Ingredients

• 225g / 8oz Odlums Cream Plain Flour
• 125g / 4oz Margarine
• 1/4 pint / 150ml Cold Water (approx.)
• 4 Large Cooking Apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
• Sugar to sweeten apples
• Icing Sugar to dust (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6.
2. Place margarine in freezer for about 15 minutes to harden.
3. Sieve flour into a bowl.
4. Grate hard margarine into the flour. You may need a little flour on your fingers for this.
5. Using a knife, mix grated margarine into flour.
6. Add sufficient water and mix to a soft dough with the knife.
7. Turn onto a floured board and knead lightly.
8. Roll out half the pastry to the size of an ovan proof plate.
9. Arrange apples on the pastry.
10. Sprinkle with sugar to sweeten.
11. Roll remaining pastry to cover the apples.
12. Dampen edge of base pastry with cold water to seal.
13. Press top pastry over apples to make the tart. Seal the edges by using the back of a knife to form a crust. Then cut at 1″/3cm intervals to form a scalloped edge if liked!
14. Put a cut on top of pastry to allow steam to escape and bake for 35 minutes approx.

Top Baking Tip To Avoid A ‘Soggy Bottom’:

“Some people have difficulty with soggy bottoms and a tip to prevent this is to put the bottom layer of pastry on the plate and keep it in the freezer while preparing the apples and rolling the top layers of pastry it is also very important that the oven has reached the right temperature before putting the tart into bake – follow these tips and you will have a top class apple tart!”