Apple tarte fine means thin apple tart. The reason it has this name is due to the elegance of the dish, yet it remains such a simple dessert. There is slightly more work involved in the preparation of the tarte than a classic apple tarte. This is a traditional French tarte, most often found in bakeries. In Sydney, you can find some at Flour and Stone in Woolloomooloo or on market days at Orange Grove and Everleigh market (where Flour and Stone have a stall). There are probably other places.
The tart consists of puff pastry, apples, butter and sugar (very little). You may find some versions with Calvados, feel free to indulge. The recipe below is mine and remains simple.
Serves 6-8
Preparation – 30 min
Cooking – 30 min
Ingredients:
- 4Â large apples
- 1 quantity of puff pastry (2/3 of the pastry obtained by my recipe here for a 37 cm diameter round tray – I use my pizza tray, alternatively use some commercial butter puff pastry)
- About 50 g butter
- Icing sugar (2 tablespoons)
- Good quality redcurrent, apricot or strawberry jam (any of the first two is better) – for the shiny finish, optional
Method:
- Preheat oven to 170 ºC (150 forced fan)
- On a very lightly floured work bench, roll the puff pastry to a 5 mm thickness, place on baking paper on your baking sheet (no need to use a tart tin).
- Delineate with the point of a knife the centre from the edge. With a fork, make holes using the teeth of the fork, as on the photo below. This will prevent the puff pastry from “blooming” underneath the apples.
- Peel and core one apple, cut in small size dices, place in a saucepan with about 1/2 cup of water and cook until just tender. This will make a small apple puree to place below the apple, I find it gives the tart a better finish. You may have to adjust the water as it will depend on your fire and saucepan.
- Smear the pastry centre with the apple puree (there will be left over most likely). Melt the butter and mix with 2 tablespoon of icing sugar. Brush all the exposed parts of the pastry generously.
- Peel the remaining apples and core them without cutting through the fruits. You will now cut very thin discs of apple along the horizontal axis of the fruit. Once you have cut the whole apple, cut the circles in the middle so to get two piles of semi-circles.
- With you hands pan out one pile of apple semi-circle at the time and place on the pastry. Repeat until all is covered leaving the edges exposed. Brush the remaining butter mix over the apples.
- Cook for up to 30 minutes, decreasing the heat after 5 minutes to 160ºC. The tart’s edges will quickly become golden, no panic, keep baking at slow heat as you also want a bit of colour on the fruits and want the underneath of the pastry cooked.
- In the meanwhile, prepare the final glazing.Â
Place 2 spoon of jam in a bowl and add a few spoons of boiling water (2 to 4 depending on the jams) until you have consistency liquid enough to brush the tarte with. Alternatively, do this in a small saucepan on the stove. - Once the tart is out of the oven and still hot, brush over the fruits (not the edges!) the jam glaze. Be cautious to only put a thin layer.
