Maman Blanc's Apple Tart

We enjoyed watching the series that Raymond Blanc did recently, and particularly enjoyed the bread and the apples episodes (Mr Cupcake likes baking bread nearly as much as I like making cakes...).  However, following the whoopie pies earlier in the week I had some left over double cream, as well as having eggs in the fridge and a few apples in the fruit bowl... it occurred to me that with these and few other storecupboard essentials I could make the lovely Manam Blanc's Apple Tart.  It was very simple as I followed the instructions from the BBC website - although we had no calvados and so substituted this with the good old Captain Morgan that usually lives just for Christmas cake and Christmas pudding!

Manchester tart...

In between Christmas and now there hasn't been much baking in the cupcake-fest household - although I did make some functional goodies including a large tray of caramel shortbread (no picture though), a Madeira cake, and some plain flapjack.  However, I was inspired to make a Manchester tart the other week after seeing one on the Hairy Bikers/Bakers programme - the one on the programme included bananas which I thought was wrong, as the version I remembered from school was a pastry casing with jam on the bottom, then a good slab of custard, topped with coconut.  I made mine based on how I remembered it.  I confess now to *buying* the pastry case (although I think the aluminium tray gives it away) and the custard is made with powder, but there's a part of me that thinks that all of that contributes to what it is!