Sweet Treat of the Week: 'Rustic Apple Tart'.

Recipe from 'Feel Good Food Autumn 2015.' Page 44.















To start of, I need to confess that I am not the Queen of Puddings. I tend to excuse myself with the fact that I haven't got a sweet tooth. Give me savoury dishes any day, I will happily skip dessert and not even miss it. However my partner is fond of his sweets, puddings and desserts. 

So I decided to undertake the journey to gather a bit of skills pudding wise. Having only my family recipe for pancakes under my belt to shine at a dessert is a bit slim, despite coming from Normandy, and using rum to flavour my 'Boozy Pancakes'. Beside I do enjoy watching 'The Great British Bake Off' and marvel at the baking skills on show there. For the love of my Sweety Pie of an alter ego, lets increase my repertoire. 





Of course in order to set myself in the right direction and course, I needed something nice and dead easy which could be hard to cock up in order to give my subconscious all the right encouragements. A first success would spur me on to want to do more. From the magazine picture, I was sure to be on a winner with the 'Rustic Apple Tart'. 

Now, I do not know my apples very well. I know I love Granny Smith because I enjoy eating them and can recognise a Cox from a Gala. But when I had those three cooking apples on my work top, they were huge, all Bramley from Great Britain, and gosh, did they dwarf the dessert ones which happened to be Gala.

So going on steadily with the peeling, quartering, coring and the slicing, after two apples of each kind, it was evident that I had more than enough to fill a tart. So I would say two rather than three is more than enough here. But also I would add, use your own judgement. With four apples, I add many slices left which my partner took away and ate like popcorn in front of the TV. 

The above process take a little while, so I used a tip from my childhood memory watching my mum doing 'la Tarte aux Pommes'. She squeezed a lemon over the sliced apples in the bowl with regularity, well the more she put slices in. Enquired why, she told me that it prevented the apples to lose their colours and turn brown. That little tip came very handy, but also gave that extra tartness which was very welcomed. 

When the tart was cooking in the oven, I sat on the sofa and had a chance to dig in the leftover apple slices in their bowl which were kept like a coveted treasure on my partner's lap. Mixed with the sugar, cornflour, lemon juice and the star of the show cinnamon, they tasted fab, and I understood his fondness of those slices. 

Cinnamon and Apple is a marriage made in heaven. I heard it many time, trying it, I can only just nod positively and agree. 

The result of all the efforts was duly glazed with my favourite jam, an Apricot one, with the process mentioned in the recipe. I will keep that process like a tip for my future pies and tarts. 

Despite my partner questioning the rectangular aspect of the tart, for surely they should be a little more circular, he was happy to dive in it as much as our Pepsi would in a box. 

This recipe got our thumbs up. I am converted to that one: 5 stars. I will do it again. It might actually become one of a classic in my home.