French Country Apple Tart

This French pastry is in the “country” style, which means it uses simple ingredients, requires skill little skill to make, and the focus is on flavor over appearance. You do have to make a pastry crust, which isn’t hard, and I’ll walk you through it. While the recipe does call for a fair amount of sugar and butter, I ask you, have you ever seen a fat French person? It takes about 1.5 hours to make and half an hour to chill before serving so start 2 hours before Gladies arrives, you know how judgmental she can be.

Ingredients

  • Pastry crust
    • 1.5 cups flour
    • 12 TBL unsalted butter (1.5 sticks) cold & cut into .25″ slices
    • 2 TBL sugar
    • 2 oz Water – ice cold
  • Apple Fillling
    • 1.5 lbs Apples (~3 large apples)
    • 5 TBL sugar (~1/3 cup)
    • 2 TBL unsalted butter – melted
    • 1 tsp cinnamon
    • 1 tsp Vanilla extract
    • 1/8 tsp salt
  • Baking
    • 1 egg – beaten
    • 1 TBL flour
    • 2 TBL Turbinado sugar (can use regular sugar)

Process

  1. Mise en Place – measure and prepare your ingredients prior to starting.
  2. Make Pastry
    • For food processor: Add flour, salt, and sugar and pulse.
      • Add cold butter and pulse ~5 seconds until mixture is crumbly
      • Add water and pulse until a dough ball forms.
    • By Hand: Mix flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl.
      • Using pastry knife or two kitchen knives, cut butter into flour until you have a flaky crust.
      • Add water and cut until a dough ball forms
      • This will be a long process and make sure cut the mixture and not just mix it or the pastry won’t be flaky.
    • Put dough on parchment paper and cover with film. Roll into ~14″ circle 1/8″ thick and put in fridge.
  3. Make filling
    • Peel and core the apples, then cut into 1/8″ slices.
    • Mix apple slices with sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, butter, and salt.
    • Toss until apple slices are well coated.
  4. Assembly Tart
    • Sprinkle flour evenly over the pastry crust.
    • Arrange apples in a circle ~3 smaller than your pastry disk. The slices should lay flat and overlap each other (see picture).
    • Fill in center of apple circle with remaining slices.
    • Fold the pastry edges over the apple slices, there will be folds where the pastry overlaps but that’s okay – the pastry will not cover the center.
    • Brush pastry edges with egg and sprinkle 1 TBL sugar on top.
    • Sprinkle 1 TBL sugar around exposed apples.
  5. Put tart in fridge for ~20 mins.
  6. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  7. Bake tart for ~60 mins until crust is golden and the apples are tender.
  8. Using corners of parchment paper place tart on cooling rack and rest 20 mins
  9. Remove parchment paper and place tart on serving plate.
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