Tarte aux Pommes

Ok, I have never in my live been accused of being real fancy. But after taking a trip through my Mastering the Art of French Cooking vol. 1, I decided to try my hand at making an apple tart. Now, Julia describes the French Apple Tart as “a thick, well flavored applesauce spread in a partially cooked pastry shell. Over it, thinly sliced apple slices are placed in an overlapping design of circles. After baking, it is coated with apricot glaze.” And that just about sums it all up!After making several of Julia’s recipes in MtAoFC, I quickly realized that her recipes tended towards the tedious. I consulted my other kitchen tome: Le Cordon Bleu at Home. The recipes were quite similar, and I ended up just making a combination of the two. Le Cordon Bleu at Home says about the tarte:

“An apple tart can be as simple or as complicated as you like. At home in France, it is often made by layering thin-sliced apples over pie dough, dotting them with butter, sprinkling with sugar, and baking–that’s it.”

I find it terribly interesting that neither Le Cordon Bleu nor Julia Child’s Tarte aux Pommes consists of doing this.

Well, anyways, here’s what I did. You will need a 9″ removable bottomed tarte pan for this one. I got mine at Williams-Sonoma for less than $10. So I am sure you can get them real real cheap.

First you have to make the pie crust. The fancy French word for it is: Pate Brisee Sucree. (I don’t know how to insert special characters, so you will have to imagine them). I am convinced that this will work with a thawed pie crust from the store, but who knows.

To make your Pate Brisee Sucree, you need the following:

1 cup All-Purpose Flour

1/2 cup Cake Flour

1 egg

1 Tablespoon water

Pinch Salt

3 Tablespoons Sugar

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

7 Tablespoons Butter, softened

1 Egg, slightly beaten for glazing

The patience that God gave an Elephant

Once you have all of that, you just whip it all together, knead the dough and spread into the tarte pan. What neither of the books tell you is that making a sweet crust with THAT MUCH BUTTER makes it so delicate that it just falls apart. Once you get into the tarte pan, blind bake it for 15 minutes. You may as well have a hit off that liquor that you will need for the glaze. Once the empty tarte comes out. rejoice if it looks right. THEN move along to the second part.

Next you will be making applesauce.

You will need the following:

6 Golden Delicious Apples

3 Tablespoons Butter

1/4 Cup sugar

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Nothing to do for at least an hour.

Ok. Peel and core 3 of the apples. Cut into quarters and roughly chop. (These are the sauce apples) Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the apples. Cook them down not letting them color. Add the sugar and vanilla and cook until the moisture evaporates.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees at this point.

Peel and core the remaining 3 apples. Cut each in half. lay the halves on the chopping block and cut into slices that are about 1/8 inch thick. Fill the tart with the puree (that you have chilled–FAIL) and arrange the slices in a decorative pattern across the top of the tarte. Bake until the apples are tender and brown…about 30 minutes.

Now prepare your glaze. Whisk 3/4 cup apricot jam or preserves together over low heat with 1 Tablespoon Kirsch. (I used apricot brandy) When it melts, paint the top of the tarte and serve.

This tart is very impressive. and tastes exactly like applesauce baked in a crust. Save yourself a little heartache. Just heat up some applesauce and eat it on a piece of bread.