Caramelised Mango Lime Right Side Up Tart

Inspired by a caramelsied mango tart at a restaurant, this mango and lime tart is sheer heaven. If you love buttery filo pastry and caramelised sweet mango slices and tropical hits of lime zest then this right side up tarte tatin will be a dream come true! Plus, it's actually not very hard at all!

With every bite I was taking of this I was trying to dissect it and reverse engineer it because I'm a food nerd and I love doing this to tarts. It is a simple enough base, layered buttery filo but I used browned butter to add a rich nuttiness to the pastry. The topping is easy: slices of fresh mango, lime juice, sugar and butter. It's like a tarte tatin but with the base on the bottom or right side up with the delicious mango juices seeping into the buttery pastry.

So I said that this wasn't hard. And it's true, there's just a bit of patience with browning the butter and spreading it on layers. The topping is a cinch or so I thought. I was trying to make a youtube video of this but didn't have a lot of time and I don't know about you Dear Reader but whenever somebody is watching I fumble and stumble.

And when it came to peeling and slicing the mango on camera I was all thumbs. It's something I have done lots of times but it didn't help that often the success depends on the firmness of the mangoes. I wanted ripe mangoes because I wanted this tart to be luscious but I ended up all fingers and toes (yes toes, how did toes get into the recipe?).

I was talking about stage fright with Nina even with basic tasks like walking. We were sitting in a really crowded, brightly lit restaurant and I said I wanted to go to the bathroom but there were too many people there. And Nina said that whenever there's a crowd she feels funny walking past them while they are watching her. "I forget how to walk!" she said and I laughed because I feel the exact same way. I pointed at the long runway area towards the bathroom and said that if we were to walk that length in front of everyone, even though they weren't staring at us, we'd probably forget how to walk halfway and end up on our knees and then crawling til we got to the bathroom!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you become all fingers and toes when people are watching? And do you ever have that problem walking in front of other people? And have you ever made a right side up tarte tatin?

Mango Lime Right Side Up Tart

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

• 12 sheets filo pastry
• 100g/3.5ozs. browned butter*
• 3-4 mango cheeks
• 50g/1.7ozs. butter, cubed
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• Juice and finely grated zest of 1/2 lime

To brown butter, place it in a heavy bottomed saucepan on medium to high heat and allow to caramelise and bubble. Remove from heat after a few minutes once the butter browns and smells nutty

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Take a small saucepan around 18cms/7.2inches. Brush base of the saucepan with some browned butter. Then take the sheets of filo pastry and brush it with butter and then fold the sheet in half so that you get a closer size to the saucepan. Repeat with the rest of the sheets reserving 1.5 sheets. Tuck the rectangle into the saucepan and fill the centre with the remaining sheets crumpled up. Brush generously with the butter and bake for 10 minutes.

Step 2 - Meanwhile peel the cheeks and slice them on an angle keeping some at the end attached so that you can fan out the mango slices.

Step 3 - Switch the oven to grill on 200C/400F and remove the saucepan from the oven. Top with the fanned mango cheeks and drizzle over with lime juice. Dot with butter and sugar and then place under the grill until mango is caramelised (watch carefully as you don't want the pastry to burn). Sprinkle lime zest on top and serve with ice cream, creme fraiche, coconut ice cream or lime sorbet.