Tarte Aux Pommes

As apples are coming into season, leaves are transitioning over to their Burt-orange and yellow shades, and (the U.S) Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I thought I would share my most recent kitchen adventures with the tarte aux pommes (French apple tart). I think it’s such a nice counter-partner to the traditional “apple pie”, but comes off a bit more rustic and showy.

Hopefully I won’t get any backlash for this statement, but in my opinion the tarte aux pommes taste practically identical to the U.S version of apple pie. The exception is that the tarte aux pommes has wafer thin apple slices neatly arranged in the open on top of the tart, a buttery crust, and a caramelized glaze to give the whole thing that irresistible eat me sheen.

We prepped all of our materials and ingredients. I familiarized myself with the French tart ring, eek no bottom! Have you ever had the opportunity to use one?

I learned a new trick with how to make homemade vanilla sugar…. guess you will need to ask me to spill the beans.

To start we made a sweet short crust pastry. Rolled everything out by hand. Carefully Arranged dough in our tart ring and mini tartlet pans. We then popped them all into the refrigerator until we were ready for them again.

We then diced and thinly sliced the apples by hand.

We added our diced apples to pots on the stove with a mixture of butter, sugar, and cinnamon. The warm baking smells of the mixture slowly cooking happily danced up our noses. I wish I could just share that experience alone with you all.

Once the apples were soft on the stove top we then pulled out our chilled pastry dough and started to really get to work.

We filled the center of the tart with smaller diced warm apples and then continued on aligning and arranging the top ring of thinly sliced apples. It took me two attempts to get what I was looking for visually. Don’t fret if you end up doing the same.

Lastly brush the top of the apples with melted butter and generously sprinkle sugar over the tarte. We used the deck oven again and baked until golden brown. When it was finally finished, it looked incredible!

The last step was to lightly brush an apricot nappage–(an apricot jelly diluted with a bit of water and heated to near-boiling) over the tart tops. This nappage will help seal in the moisture and give it that stunning sheen that I mentioned above.

You can serve this French tart with a nice dollop of whip cream, or vanilla bean ice cream. Or, do as we did and invite your dearest friends over after a dinner out and serve casually with tea, coffee and good stories around the dining room table. Together we swooned with each bite of the buttery crust and heavenly scent of apples and cinnamon that encouraged us to just go ahead and indulge!

Backpackbees

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