This classic apple tart is another fairly easy recipe for your repertoire and will be well liked by all. Who doesn’t like apple? Who doesn’t like pastry? No one we know. And besides, this one not only looks pretty, it smells wonderful.
Another advantage is that it can be made in stages beforehand, and quickly put together when you need it. The various elements can be prepared whenever you have time and then frozen or refrigerated.
To make sure you always have a dessert on standby you could keep a quantity of the flour mix stored in the fridge, and a few batches of pastry in the freezer.
The tart base can be cooked the day before and so can the apple puree filling.
So when the time comes your last task will be to make a lovely pattern of apple slices on top and slip the tart into the oven.
Caren
APPLE TART
Serves 6-8
1 24cm pastry case, blind baked (see below)
5-6 cooking apples, Granny Smith or Golden Delicious
1 tablespoon water
½ cup caster sugar
30 gm butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 Pink Lady apples
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1½ tablespoons caster sugar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
Peel, core and roughly chop the cooking apples. Place them in a medium saucepan with the water, ½ cup caster sugar, 30gm butter, vanilla and spices. Cover and cook over a low heat until tender. Stir occasionally.
Increase the heat and cook, stirring regularly, until the apples have broken down and form a dense mass. Remove from the heat and cool.
Halve and core the 2 red apples. Trim the rounded ends off. Do not peel as the red skin adds a pretty colour to the finished tart.
Thinly slice the apple halves crossways. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and one tablespoon of the caster sugar.
Use about 450 -500gm of the apple puree to fill the tart base. Leftover apple puree can be used for other purposes such as with vanilla ice cream for a very simple dessert.
Starting from the outside, place the sliced apple pieces cut side down into the apple puree in overlapping circles as shown in the photo. You will finish in the middle and will have created a “rose”. You may have some apple slices left over.
Brush with the melted butter and sprinkle with the remaining ½ tablespoon of caster sugar. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the petals of apples are dark and caramelised.
Cool on a cake rack and serve warm with whipped cream.
PASTRY
Makes enough for 2 x 24cm tart cases
250 gm Revenge Gluten-free Almond Plain Flour Mix (see below)
85 gm caster sugar
65 gm unsalted butter, cold, cubed
1 whole egg
1 pinch salt
Place dry ingredients into a food processor and process for a couple of seconds to combine.
Add cold butter cubes and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add egg and process until the pastry comes together into a ball. You may need to add iced water, a teaspoon at a time.
Place pastry onto a sheet of plastic wrap and pat into a disc about 1cm thick. Refrigerate for an hour before rolling out. (Pastry will keep in the fridge for at least a week.)
Preheat oven to 160° C.
Remove half the pastry from the fridge and knead until it is smooth and pliable. Roll out in between two pieces of non-stick baking paper to around 3mm thick. Line a 24cm loose bottom flan tin with the pastry and return to the fridge until firm. Remove from the fridge and blind bake.
The remaining pastry can be kept in the fridge for at least a week or rolled out to line a 24cm flan tin and then frozen – very handy to have on hand. Remove from the freezer and blind bake.
To blind bake:
Line your chilled pastry-lined tin with foil, pressing well into the corners. Fill with baking weights, (raw rice, dried beans or purchased pastry weights all work equally well) pushing them up the sides of the shell.
Place in preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully remove the foil and baking weights. Return the tart shell to the oven for a further 7 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool on rack.
The cooked pastry case will keep, wrapped in plastic wrap for 3-4 days.
REVENGE GLUTEN-FREE ALMOND PLAIN FLOUR MIX
280 gm almond meal
210 gm besan flour
280 gm fine white rice flour
175 gm corn flour
Mix up a batch and store in the fridge