Apricot and Hazelnut Upside-down Biscuit Pie




for the 6 ramekins:

60 g unsalted butter
50 g brown sugar

Beat the soft butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until creamy paste. Cover the bottoms and walls of the ramekins. Leave aside.

for the vanilla sauce:

250 ml heavy cream
3 yolks
3 Tbsp powder sugar
5 ml vanilla extract

Heat the cream in a heavy bottom pan until just before the boiling point. Beat the eggs and the sugar. Add the cream to the egg mixture, stirring constantly. Add the vanilla extract. Return back to the pan over a medium heat and stir until slightly thickens. Cover and set to cool.  

for the biscuits:

75 g unsalted butter
50 g sugar
115 g flour
75 g blanched hazelnuts, crashed

Beat the butter and sugar with the wooden spoon.Add the flour and form a ball. Divide in 6 equal pieces (aprox. 53 g each). Shape each into a ball and flatten with your palms to form a nice thick disc.



for the tailoring:

apricot halves compote
5 Tbsp apricot jelly

Tailoring:

Assemble the apricot halves on the bottom of the buttered ramekins. Cover each one with the dough disc, pressing gently. Bake at 200C for 15 min. Leave to cool in the ramekins.

Serving:



If the vanilla sauce thickened too much, thin it with a bit of cream or heat it slightly. If the jelly thickened, heat gently and place it in a parchment paper cone.


Use a warm large plate. Pour some of the vanilla sauce, forming very thin layer. Loosen the cooled biscuit with a knife, moving gently around the walls of the ramekin. In a small plate, turn the pie over, than transfer it in the centre of the serving plate. With the jelly, pipe decoration as desired. Do not leave the jelly in the parchment paper cone for a long time. Work fast, before the jelly hardens again. On my decoration, for some of the finishing elements, the jelly hardened and the lines were not as delicate as I wanted them to be. If you have much decoration left to finish, you would need to rewarm the jelly again and continue your work, achieving the desired result.


This desert is an extremely successful combination of fruit and nuts, and nobody minded my crooked lines.






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