French Apple Tarts

Serves: 4 - 6

Preparation: 15 - 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 12 - 15 minutes

Category: Vegetarian

Plan: Prepare in advance and warm up these tarts just before serving.

Difficulty:  Easy

Course: Pudding

Cuisine: French

This is a pudding that I often choose to order at one of my favourite local French restaurants.

It is surprisingly easy to prepare using store room ingredients

and the most time consuming aspect is carefully cutting an eating apple

into very neat and equal segments.

The images above were taken of these tarts made in great haste,

done more slowly and with better attention to detail, the finished tart

can look spectacular and extremely inviting!   They smell great as well!

You can make these earlier in the day and then warm them up for 5-10 minutes

immediately before serving to ensure that extra crispiness of the pastry.

We served this with home made Tonka Bean Ice Cream

I think any luncheon guests would really enjoy these!

Utensils

• Large baking tray/s
• Chopping board
• Bowl for discarded peel or cores
• Sharp knife
• Bow of water
• Greaseproof or baking paper
• Sieve for the icing sugar

Ingredients

• 4 good quality eating apples - Jazz, Gala, Braeburn, Gala, washed, cored and cut into at least ten or eleven equal segments
• Juice of one lemon
• Bowl of water
• One roll of ready made puff pastry
• Jar of either apricot jam or a jam of your choice, we used Damson and that was perfect
• Icing sugar
• Ground Cinnamon
• 1 beaten egg
• Demerara sugar

To serve

• Ice cream, double cream or Créme Frâiche

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/Fan 190C/Gas Mark 6
   
   
2. Roll out the pastry on a well floured board or silicon mat and using a ruler, and pizza cutter, divide into four equal squares, which need to be rolled out just large enough to leave a border around the arranged apple segments.
   
   
3. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg generously round the edges and these should be sprinkled with Demerara sugar, which gives a wonderful crunchy texture to the cooked pastry.
   
   
4. Now, with a teaspoon, put a small mound of jam onto the middle of the pastry and coax it into a neat round, big enough to accommodate the sliced apple segments.
   
   
5. Take one apple at a time, remove the core and cut into ten or eleven equal sized segments and then arrange these in a circle, slightly overlapping in the centre as neatly as possible.   If you prepare all the apples, it will be necessary to put them in a bowl and cover them with water containing the juice of one lemon to stop discolouration.
   
   
6. Once the apples are arranged neatly in a circle, sieve some icing sugar over the whole tart.
   
   
7. Now sprinkle fairly generously some ground cinnamon over the apple segments.
   
   
8. These are now ready to put into the oven - for about 12 - 15 minutes, until golden but don't allow the pastry to get too dark.
   
   
9. For a professional finish, glaze the apples with some more jam before serving.
   
   
   
10. If you re-heat the tarts for 5-10 minutes just before serving, this should ensure the pastry is deliciously crispy and crunch with the icing sugar on the egg finish and sprinkled demerara.
    
    
11. These tarts are wonderful served with ice cream, especially home made - we used my Tonka Bean Ice Cream - otherwise, you can use double cream or Créme Frâiche.