Tarte aux Pommes

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine organised a pot-luck supper. It was my job to bring dessert, another friend brought a starter of hummus, roasted peppers, pitta, olives which was yummy, and our hostess made saumon en croute (salmon in puff pastry) for the main course. Another friend brought some wine. We all had a great time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. These kinds of dinners are really fun!

I made a French apple tart (tarte aux pommes) as my contribution. Before making it, I hadn't realised what a mammoth task it would be - though it's not a difficult recipe, there are lots of stages which meant (for me) that it dragged out over the whole day! But I wouldn't want to put you off, because the result was really good. I originally got the recipe from Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook (again), but the version below is adapted to make the different stages easier to follow.

Tarte aux pommes - serves 8

Stage 1 - Apple compote - 30-40 minutes plus cooling

1. Melt about 90 g butter in a large saucepan. Add 1.5 kg of peeled, cored, and chopped cooking apples. (Note: you don't have to peel them, but I find it helps to spot any bad bits that need to be chopped out). Then add about 3 tbsp water and 3-4 tbsp caster sugar, stir to coat the apples, and cook, covered, very gently for 20-25 minutes.
2. When the apples are soft, put them into a sieve and rub them through the sieve into a clean pan. It's easiest to do this in stages.
3. If it looks really runny, cook it over a high heat for 10-20 minutes until it's thick.
4. Leave to cool. This recipe makes twice as much as you'll need; once it's cool, put half into a tub and freeze it until you next need some.

Stage 2 - Pastry making - 10-15 minutes plus 30 minutes chilling - do this while you are waiting for the compote to cook and cool.

1. Put 250 g plain flour into a bowl.
2. Rub in 125 g chilled, cubed butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Don't be disheartened if it seems to be taking ages - it will look right quite suddenly!
3. Stir in 125 g caster sugar.
4. Add 4 egg yolks (from medium eggs) and mix together with your (clean) hands to make a soft dough.
5. Wrap it in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.

Stage 3 - Blind baking - 30 minutes plus cooling - do this while the compote is cooling.

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees.
2. Flour the work surface and rolling pin, then roll out the pastry and use to line the flan tin (see separate post on tips for using pastry).
3. Bake blind - prick the base of the pastry all over with a fork, line with foil, pile in baking beans, bake for 10-15 minutes, then remove the foil and beans and bake for a further 5 minutes until lightly brown. Cool.

Stage 4 - Chopped apples -10 minutes - do this after the pastry case has cooled (about 1 hour).

1. Peel, core, quarter and chop 4 small to medium eating apples. Don't make the slices too thin - about 0.5 cm should be about right. As you do each one, put the slices into a bowl, splash over some lemon juice, and toss to coat the apples - this stops them going brown.

Stage 5 - Assembly - 10 minutes - and final bake - 30-40 minutes

1. Spoon the cooled apple compote into the cooled pastry shell.
2. Arrange the apple slices on top in circles.
3. Sprinkle all over with 1 tbsp caster sugar.
4. Bake in the oven, still at 190 degrees, for 30-40 minutes until the apples are tender and lightly browned at the edges.

Adding up all the time this might seem like a long recipe. But if you make the pastry while the apples are stewing, chill it and bake it while the apples are cooling, wait a while, chop the apples and assemble the whole thing, it isn't really so bad! We ate it with creme fraiche, and with smiles on our faces!

Addendum, 11/01/2010

Over Christmas my husband's French grandmother made us a tarte aux pommes while we were staying with her in Brittany. She doesn't use compote, but just slices a lot more apples and puts them in the tart tin standing on their sides so that they are nicely packed in together. When it's baked, the apples start to go mushy underneath. The effect is really good and it's a lot less effort.