“I got this recipe from friends Louis and Anita and adapted it for a potjie on the fire years ago. There really is no trick to this one, it’s foolproof and a crowd pleaser every single time.”
Apple tart in potjie
Serves 6
Ingredients
For the filling
9 Granny Smith apples
1 lemon
½ cup water
½ cup raisins
1 tsp ground cinnamon
For the crumble
1½ cups (185g) cake wheat flour
1½ (375ml) cups brown sugar (caramel brown sugar, or ordinary light brown sugar)
½ cup (125g) salted butter (soft) + 2 tots butter
Dash of ground cinnamon
Whipped cream, fresh cream, ice cream or custard, for serving
Method
- Make the filling: Peel and core the apples, cut them into chunks and squeeze the juice of the lemon over the apple chunks. Now throw them in a potjie and add the water, raisins and cinnamon, and mix well.
- Put the potjie on the fire, with the lid on. Cook the mixture for about 10 minutes until the apples begin to soften. Remove from the fire once cooked.
- Make the crumble: While the apples and their friends cook, add the flour, sugar and 125g butter to a bowl and rub together with your clean fingertips until it forms a dry, crumbly mixture.
- Add half the crumble mixture to the potjie and mix it into the cooked apple mixture.
- Use the rest of the crumble mixture to cove the apples – make sure spreads out evenly.
- Add a couple of knobs of butter on top of the crumble and sprinkle a bit of cinnamon over the top to give the tart some colour. Put the lid on the potjie and go back to the fire.
- Put the potjie over gentle coals and put coals on the lid. When and if the coals lose power, add extra coals to the bottom and top of the potjie. If the fire is big and one side of the potjie gets more heat than the other, rotate the potjie every now and again. Bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until you see the apple sauce bubbling through the crust when you lift the lid.
- Enjoy with whipped cream, fresh cream, ice cream or custard.
Recipes: Jan Braai
Food styling: Brita Du Plessies
Photographs: Toby Murphy
