Comfort Food: French Apple Tart

Featuring Kitchen Artefacts chopper & Cutipol cutlery

If you have apples on hand thisdelicious recipe can be rustled up using everyday cupboard ingredients. Thanks to Kalos Chan for sharing it with us.

This recipe should serve 8 and will take 30 minutes to prep, 20 minutes to chill the assembled tart and approximately 1 hour to cook in the oven.

Crust ingredients

• 1-1/2 cup of all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 170g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 1/4 cup icy water

Filling ingredients

• 3 large apples
•  1/4 cup of sugar (sugar of your choice)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 20g unsalted butter, melted
• 1/6 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• Drizzle of quince liqueur or sherry (optional)

To assemble, you'll need

• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 tablespoons soft brown sugar

Make the crust: 

• Line a baking tray with baking paper.
• Combine the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor with steel blade. Pulse briefly to combine.
• Add the cold butter and process just until the butter is the size of peas, about 5 seconds. Sprinkle the ice water over the mixture and process just until moistened and very crumbly, about 5 seconds.
• Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead a few times, just until it comes together into a ball. Don't overwork it.
• Pat the dough into a disk shape. Flour your work surface again and dust the dough with flour.
• Use a rolling pin, roll the dough into a circle about 20cm in diameter. Flip and add more flour as necessary so the dough doesn’t stick.
• Transfer the dough to the lined baking tray and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

Prepare the filling: 

• Peel and thinly slice apples. You should have about 4 cups.
• Place in a large bowl and add the sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, melted butter, salt and sherry (liqueur is optional).
• Lightly toss to combine.
• Drain excess liquid before assembling the tart.

Assemble the tart:

• Sprinkle the flour evenly over the pastry. Arrange the apple slices on top in overlapping concentric circles. Don’t worry about making it look perfect, just work fast so the dough doesn't get too warm.
• Fold the edges of the dough over the apples and work your way around creating pleats as you go.
• Use a pastry brush, brush the pleated dough evenly with the beaten egg. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of soft brown sugar over the top crust and 1 tablespoon over the fruit.
• Chill the assembled tart in the fridge/freezer for 15 to 20 minutes.
• Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 175 degrees.
• Bake for 55 - 65 minutes, or until the apples are tender and the crust is golden and cooked through. It’s okay if some of the juices leak from the tart onto the pan. The juices will burn on the pan but the tart would be fine.
• Transfer the pan to a rack and let cool.

Serve with:
Crème fraîche or plain yoghurt combined with lemon zest and a pinch of sea salt flakes.