Baked Apple Pancake With Cider Syrup

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 160 ml milk
• 85 g strong white bread flour
• 1 tbsp sugar snap peas
• cinnamon
• 0 cinnamon
• 200 g brown sugar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 475 ml apple
• 1 apple, thinly sliced, unpeeled
• 2 tbsp apple

Method

1. Start with the syrup, because it needs time to cool and thicken. Tip the cider, dark brown sugar and cinnamon sticks into a saucepan and bring to a brisk boil over high heat. Drop to a steady simmer and let it reduce for 25–30 minutes, until it coats the back of a spoon and has reduced by roughly a third — it should look like loose maple syrup, not toffee. Pull off the heat and leave to cool; it tightens further as it sits.
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan and butter a 23cm pie dish generously, right up the sides — you want the batter climbing a slick surface, not gripping a dry one.
3. Toss the apple slices with the 2 tbsp brown sugar and a good pinch of cinnamon until glossy, then fan them across the base of the dish in overlapping rows.
4. Crack the eggs into a bowl with a pinch of salt — that pinch lifts the sweetness and stops the batter tasting flat. Whisk for a full minute until pale and frothy. Add the milk, flour, apple sauce and caster sugar and whisk until just smooth. A few small lumps are fine; overworked batter goes tough and won't puff.
5. Taste the batter on the tip of a spoon — it should taste sweet but not cloying, with the salt just perceptible. Adjust now if it needs another pinch.
6. Pour the batter gently over the apples and slide straight into the oven — the dish needs to hit heat fast for a proper puff. Bake for 15–18 minutes, until the top is deeply golden, dramatically puffed at the edges and firm to a light press in the centre. Resist opening the oven before the 14-minute mark; cold air collapses the rise.
7. Rest for 5–10 minutes. It will settle and deflate slightly — that's the pancake doing what it's meant to, not a failure.
8. Run a knife around the edge, invert onto a serving plate so the caramelised apples sit on top, dust thickly with icing sugar, then pour the warm cider syrup generously over the lot at the table and bring the clotted cream alongside.