Alison Roman’s caramelised maple tart

Method

1. Heat the oven to 160°C fan/gas 4. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, icing sugar and salt. Using your fingers, incorporate the melted butter until you have a crumbly dough, with a texture like Play-Doh. Resist the urge to knead the dough, as you don’t want to develop any gluten – that’s when you’ll get a crust that shrinks on you.
2. Press the dough into the tart or cake tin and use the tines of a fork or the tip of a knife to lightly prick the top all over. This allows steam to escape during baking and prevents bubbles.
3. Bake the crust for 15-18 minutes, or until the bottom is lightly golden brown and the top goes from shiny to opaque (a tell-tale sign that it’s baked through). The crust will get baked again with the filling, so don’t worry too much about the edges being totally golden brown. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely but leave the oven on.
4. To make the filling, pour the maple syrup into a small saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Cook for 8-10 minutes until it turns from pale golden brown with lots of small, furious bubbles to a dark golden brown with larger, slower bubbles. What you’re doing is evaporating the water in the syrup to concentrate the flavours and caramelise the sugars. The smell should never be wholly ‘caramel’, but more like the most intense maple syrup you’ve ever smelled.
5. Once the maple syrup has reached the desired caramelised stage, add the cinnamon, if using. Slowly whisk in the cream in stages, letting it bubble up as you add it so the maple syrup doesn’t seize up and harden. Remove from the heat and set aside.
6. Whisk together the egg, egg yolk, cornflour and salt in a bowl. Using a ladle or measuring jug, add around 120ml of the maple mixture to the eggs while whisking continuously. Add another 120ml, continuing to whisk, then add the remaining maple mixture, whisking until thoroughly combined.
7. Pour the maple mixture into the cooled crust. Return it to the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the custard has set, is no longer wobbling in the centre and has a nice shiny top. Leave to cool completely before topping with whipped cream, some more maple syrup and a few salt flakes.