French Apple Tart - Tarte Au Pommes Francais

I recently went to cookery school for the first time. It was a bit of a bargain because I got the deal from Groupon so it was only £30 instead of £85. I enjoyed the class so much I immediately booked onto a full priced one. In May I'll be learning how to make rum truffles and white chocolates with mango centres. Yum.

The course was at Brockenhurst College and it was worth going just for what I witnessed on the drive there. I saw a pub with a sign outside banning "grannies in bikinis" and a woman being rescued by an ambulance after getting her foot stuck in a cattle grid.

Anyway, I chose to partake in the pastry class as I'm guilty of always using shop bought stuff. I know it's easy to make but I never got round to learning. The chef explained that he we would be cooking an apple tart that he used to cook when he was head chef at the Ritz - ooh, fancy.

This was the final result:

Not bad for a beginner! The apples were prepared in a totally different way than I'm used to. The chef told us putting apples in sugar and water is a crime and did go into the science of why it was wrong but I've forgotten it now. I found my once superb memory went into decline when I was on dialysis and it hasn't recovered just yet. Or perhaps I'm just getting old. *le cry*

The recipe for this glorious tarte is as follows:

Ingredients

250g plain flour

120g butter (for the pastry)

25g butter (for the apple filling)

60g castor sugar

1 egg

5 large Bramley apples

Jar of apricot jam

Put the 25g of butter into a pan and melt it until it just starts to turn brown.

Peel, core and quarter the apples. Cut them into slices about half a centimetre thick and add them to the pan of butter. You'll have to work FAST because you don't want the apples going a funny colour. 

Cook the apples until they start to resemble lumpy mashed potatoes. Do not cook them until it's smooth like baby food!

When it's ready, spread it out on a cool flat surface eg a baking tray. Try and make it as flat as possible to assist with the cooling.

Now you can start on the pastry.

Lightly grease a baking tray and an 8 inch flan ring. This recipe didn't use a conventional tart case, it was just a ring on a baking tray.

Put the flour, 120g butter and sugar into a bowl and rub together until resembling bread crumbs. 

Then add the egg and mix with your hands until it is all blended together and feels something like marzipan in texture.

Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry using light strokes. That's right folks, there is no pastry refrigeration in this recipe!! 

Using the rolling pin lift the pastry and place it over the flan ring. Push the pastry all around the bottom of the ring to make a pastry "dish". 

Roll the rolling pin across the top of the pastry to take off the excess. You can then use your thumb and index figure to crimp the pastry into a pretty shape. 

When the apple mixture is completely cooled, pour it into the pastry case. Yes, another surprise - no blind baking.

Spread it out as flat as possible so it cooks evenly. 

Take the final Bramley apple and peel, core and quarter it. Then cut into thin slices you can spread over the top of the tart. 

Cook in the oven at 180degrees for 20-25 minutes.

To glaze the tart, melt down the apricot jam and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes before generously brushing it over the top of the tart. Remember, there is no sugar in the apple mixture so this will add sweetness.

This was how my pastry case looked after all the crimping. The bottom of the pastry is in direct contact with the baking tray which is why you don't need to blind bake it. 

And here is the tart before it was baked. 

I loved doing this course because all the usual rules about pastry like chilling it before use and blind baking were completely ignored and the tarte didn't suffer for it.

You'll have a bit of pastry left over and you can add some chocolate chips or nuts and make some biscuits. Waste not want not!

I made the tarte again for Easter dessert but I used a 10 inch metal flan dish with a base from Lakeland. I used the exact same recipe but should have added another apple to the filling because it was a bit thin due to the extra couple of inches. I didn't chill the pastry and I didn't blind bake it and I was really pleased with the results. If you were going to use a ceramic or glass dish then you would need to blind bake it because the heat can't get to the base properly. I may have forgotten the science behind not soaking apples in water but I do remember that bit! 

Here's the one I made at the weekend at home without all the fancy pants equipment at cookery school *smug face*