Please Let the Crust Defy Gravity

Tinseltroos and I had an invitation to our friend Heg's for dinner last night. Heg had invited us and two other of her friends over as we'd expressed our interest in the pickled herring of her native Norway. I've always liked pickled herring and, via other Scandinavian friends, have had Danish and Swedish herring but Norway was a new one on me. As I didn't have to work on Saturday I asked Heg if I might make a pudding, she acquiesced and I set to reading through my cookery books on the lookout for something new. I decided, eventually, to do a tarte tatin which I have made many times before, but just to make it interesting for myself, I decided to make my own puff pastry. You can call this either bravery or plain foolishness as you please. I make a pretty decent shortcrust pastry but I have not tried puff pastry before. Before getting my hands covered in flour I consulted youTube for any helpful tutorials and found this one, by the wonderful Ms. Glaze who also writes this blog. She is a professional chef and therefore rather intimidatingly competent. Nonetheless I was adamant I would have a go. Here's a photo of the pastry after its final turn before it went back into the fridge to rest (again):

The rest of the tarte tatin preparation was very straightforward and once the pastry was rolled out and had covered the apples and caramel there was nothing to do but put it into the oven and then let it cook. I think I returned to peep through the oven door window about once every two minutes so worried was I that it would sit there, unmoving, and cook into an unappealing pastry brick. The gods must have been on my side as it did rise and actually looked quite presentable when it came out. Tinseltroos wondered what the little yelps of glee coming from the kitchen were. This was the cause:

After allowing it to cool for a couple of minutes it was ready to turn out and, ta da - the finished dish:

We had a lovely evening of Norwegian ham, elk sausage, pickled herring with boiled egg and rye bread. Tinseltroos looked disgustedly at the plate of sausage and egg. As a vegetarian who finds eggs creepy this was probably her worst nightmare on a plate. She seemed happy enough with her cheese and mushrooms though. After dinner came my pudding which seemed to go down well and following food came a couple of vodka martinis to finish the night off. Normally I am resolutely a gin man, especially in a martini, but Heg had tracked down a bottle of 42 Below, a vodka from New Zealand which was actually delicious. Probably the nicest vodka I've had. They have an irritatingly faux hip website here if you're interested. And so we said our goodbyes, wandered down the canal tow path back into Bethnal Green, got on the tube and trundled home.