SHF 2: Tarte aux pommes

This is my contribution to the second edition of the Sugar High Fridays, the food-blogging event hosted by Jennifer.

For those of you who are not familiar with the concept (I mostly think of my French readers), let me just give a quick explanation: Once a month, Jennifer gives a theme that should inspire a dessert, which is to be made by the deadline, always a Friday. Whether you are a food-blogger or not, all you need to do is a cook a dessert related to the chosen theme, and then post the recipe that Friday. The first edition - which I missed - was about white chocolate and this month's is all about apples.

This time, I had a very good excuse to participate to this edition, as more than 20 lbs of apples recently relocated to my apartment. I had already made apple betty squares and apple sauce earlier this month, and I decided to prepare an apple tart or tarte aux pommes last Sunday, thinking I could post the recipe to participate to this month's Sugar High Friday.

Tarte aux pommes is a very easy dessert to make. The hardest part being to cut the apples in thin slices, there is no reason why you shouln't bring this elegant dessert to your table. The only complaint I would have though, is that it is, sometimes, not apple-y enough, and I have always wondered how I could make this tart tastier.

One day, my friend Virginie, who used to work in a bakery, told me that she has never seen anything else but Granny Smith apples on a tarte aux pommes. From that day on, I followed her recommendation. Then, several months later, I remembered seeing my mother spreading jam on the bottom of her crust, and thought: Wouldn't that be a good idea to spread apple sauce instead of jam? So, I prepared a tarte aux pommes with Granny Smith apples and apple sauce, and there I had it: The tastiest tarte aux pommes!

Last Sunday, I could unfortunately not use Granny Smith apples, and went for red-colored apples instead. I also used a very tasty homemade apple sauce (recipe here) and glazed the apples with some apricot jam. The result was very pleasing and I hope you will like the recipe as much as I did.

Estelle's tarte aux pommes

Ingredients

- a pie crust, preferably homemade
- 3 big apples, preferably Granny Smith
- 1/2 cup of good quality apple sauce
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
- 2 tablespoons apricot jam (optional)

Preparation

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

- Peel and cut the apples in quarters. Core and cut them in very thin slices. Place them in a large bowl as you go, and press some lemon juice to prevent them from turning brown.

- Unfold the crust in a pie dish and blind bake it for about 10 minutes.

- Spread the apple sauce on the crust, then arrange the apple slices like on the picture. Sprinkle the sugar and the butter over the apples and bake until the apples are tender, about 50 minutes.

- For the glaze, dilute the apricot jam with a teaspoon of warm water and use a brush to spread the mixture on the apples.

- The tart is better served warm, but is very hard to resist the urge to pick some slices while it is cooling down. My advice? Go ahead and help yourself! And if you pick the ones in the center, no one will notice anyway...