French Apple Tart

A while ago I splurged on some baking pans from France and I've been dying to use them ever since. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to use them, but I'm very pleased in the result with their inaugural use. I love the look of the French apple tarts that you can see displayed so beautifully inside the patisserie shop cases. I wanted to give it a try for myself.

These open-faced tarts are really quite simple to prepare. I adapted mine from Le Cordon Bleu Dessert Techniques book. First the dough is prepared. I used a recipe for pâte sucrée, which is a sweet, short pastry dough. It reminds me a lot of short bread cookies. Peel, core, and thinly slice some cooking apples and arrange nicely in the tart pan. I love, love, love my apple peeler/corer. It makes this job oh so easy, and it's actually kind of fun to use! The apples are brushed with melted butter, then sprinkled with sugar and baked. After the tart is baked, I heated some apricot preserves and lightly brushed it on the tops of the apples.

The toughest task was arranging the apple slices. No matter how I tried, mine just didn't look as good as in the picture. What I discovered though is that as the apples bake, they magically soften up, shrink a bit, and meld together nicely. So, the final product turned out a lot better than the raw version. The tart was excellent; definitely different than an apple pie and really delicious with vanilla ice cream.

French Apple Tart

Pâte Sucrée

1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla

Sift the flour into a bowl and rub in the butter. Stir in the sugar. Use a fork to lightly whisk the egg yolks with the vanilla then add them to the dry ingredients and mix to forma short dough. Press together lightly and chill for 30 minutes. (The dough will be more crumbly than regular pie dough)

Apple Tart

4 cooking apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced (I used Granny Smith)
juice from 1 lemon
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup sugar

Toss the apples with the lemon juice to prevent discoloration. Press the tart dough into the tart pan making sure to get the dough along all of the sides. Arrange the apples in the pan, overlapping them slightly. Brush with the melted butter and sprinkle with the sugar. Bake at 375 for around 45 minutes. (Keep an eye on the edges of the crust. I had to use a crust shield toward the end of the baking time.)

I also brushed mine with some cooked apricot preserves. It gave it a nice glossy finish with even extra flavor.