I Made an Apple Tart!

Happy Valentine’s Day! I made an apple tart! I probably surprised myself not only with how it tasted but how it looked. Just after starting to make the crust, I realized....I don’t own a tart pan. So, we improvised in a springform pan and it worked.

The key is time and good quality products.

We used two different kinds of apples, good apricot preserves and cognac (vs an apple brandy)

First, I tackled the crust. Using Julia’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking book, I made a sugar crust shell. It is recommended for fruit tarts. A higher amount of sugar does make the crust a little tougher to work with. We made the crust early in the morning and let it chill in the refrigerator for about 4 hours.

Now remember, we only had a springform pan, so we molded the crust into the pan and created about a 2” lip around the pan, which we had lined with parchment paper. We cooked in a 375 oven for about 5 minutes, to a light brown color. We chose to keep the crust in the pan for the next step.

We tested different tools.

We tried using a mandolin to slice the apples but it did not make the perfect wedges. We used an apple slicer after hand peeling the apples and it was not effective either. Finally, we simply hand sliced the apples to get the perfect wedges we were seeking.

Half of the apples were used to make the apple “sauce.” The recipe called for 8 cups of uncooked apples. After cooking for about 30 minutes we added brandy, apricot preserves, sugar and butter as directed in the recipe. It tasted delicious, but the texture was a bit odd. I think that was because we did not puree the apples enough, which we will do next time.

While not perfect we thought going into the oven it was still very pretty!

I was so pleased how it turned out, as I don’t bake a lot. The crust held up well and that delicious apple sauce bubbled through. To get the crusty-browned top, we actually took creative license from another recipe in the book, sifting powdered sugar on at the last 5 minutes of baking. We then turned on the broiler at the last 2 minutes, and wow! It looked great.

After all we live in Texas.

We served with Blue Bell ice cream of course! Since we had made the tart earlier in the day, we heated in a warm oven for about 10 minutes before serving. As the recipe calls for we then brushed with an apricot glaze to finish. It was loved by all!