French apple tart
The French have this amazing talent to make food look like a piece of art. Specially when it comes to pastry. You just can't pass a patisserie in France without being captured by the beautiful looking and tasting little pastries. This apple tart makes no difference. I like to use granny smith apples, since they stay firm during the baking process. The apricot glaze at the end gives the tart a shiny, sophisticated look and merges beautiful with the apple flavour.
Equipment
- mandoline
- tart form 30 cm in diameter
Ingredients
- margerine for greasing your tart form
- 400 g ready-made puff pastry
- 6-8 granny smith apples, peeled, cored, halfed and thinly sliced. (I use my mandoline for this)
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 2 egg yolks
- 250 ml cream
- 60 g sugar
- 10 ml vanilla essence
- 30 g maizena
- 45 g apricot jam or jelly
- some icing sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
- Grease a 30 cm tarte or pie dish with margerine.
- Place the puff pastry into the dish, make sure to cover the sides of the dish with pastry as well.
- Pierce the pastry at the bottom of the pan a few times with a fork and place the dish in the fridge until you need it.
- Mix 50 ml water with the lemon juice.
- Put the apple slices in a microwave safe bowl, pour the lemon juice mix over and microwave on high for 3 minutes. (This step is not essential but it makes the apple slices easier to arrange in the form since they are softer. If you think it is not necessary, you can skip this step).
- Take the dish out of the fridge and arrange the apple slices, overlapping from outside to inside.
- Mix the yolks, cream, sugar, essence and maizena until smooth and pour over the apples.
- Bake the tart in the preheated oven for more or less 50 minutes. You want the edges of the apples slightly browned.
- Take the tart out of the oven.
- Mix the apricot jam with a tablespoon of water and heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds.
- Carefully brush the surface of the tart with the apricot jam mixture.
- You can dust the tart with icing sugar before serving.
- Tip: the tart is delicious on its own or served with whipped cream or slightly sweetened Greek yoghurt.
This looks delicious. Definitely going to try this.