French Apple Tart

This came from Cooks Illustrated 131 and looked fussy but impressive. The pastry crust is super easy; the puree plus apple rosette topping is a bit of work but worth it. Active time is about three hours, most of it on prepping and cooking the apples -- the crust and filling are pretty quick. It is fancy as a dessert, and indulgent as breakfast. We made it a couple times and it's a hit. We've updated the quantities and some procedure for what worked for us. You can double the recipe but will need to have plenty of big skillets.

Baked in a 9-inch tart pan

For simplicity, use the same variety of apples for the puree as for the topping because different varieties cook at different rates; if you want some contrast make sure you cook the puree apples separately from the topping apples. Varieties like Muntaner and Braeburn work well, they stay firm; surprisingly, Granny Smiths turn mushy very quickly when cooking.

Ingredients below are for one 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom, but you can also use a 9-inch disposable aluminum pie tin or Pyrex pie pan. I recently made this in a 10x3-inch spring-form pan (so it would be easier to transport to a friend's house), and scaled up the ingredients by 25% to accommodate the larger volume.

Crust

The big innovation Cooks contributes here, IMHO, is the super-easy pastry crust using melted butter: it comes together quickly and doesn't bubble or shrink. If you're not using a tart pan, you might want to increase the quantity so you have enough to run up the sides.

10-inch 9-inch  9-inch pan

228 g   185 g   6 1/2 ounce (1 1/3 cup)  Flour, all purpose
 80 g    65 g   2 1/4 ounce (5 Tbs)      Sugar
  6 g     5 g     1/2 tsp                Salt
185 g   150 g  10     Tbs                Butter, unsalted, melted

Preheat oven to 180C/350F or 165C/325F convection.
Whisk together the dry ingredients, then pour in the melted butter and combine until you get a smooth play-dough-like consistency.

Press into the tart pan, bottom and sides; I cover with cellophane and smooth with the bottom of a measuring cup.
Bake 30-35 minutes until deep golden brown; set aside until ready to fill.

Filling

You might want to add one more apple to your mix but we needed less than Cooks 5 pounds (2250 g). In Barcelona with a 10-inch spring form pan, I used 880 g sweet apples for the base and 1040 g tart apples for the top (total of 1920 g, 8 large apples), and had some topping apples left over.

1400 g     3 pounds Apples, flavorful, firm, peeled and cored
  45 g     3 Tbs    Butter, unsalted
  15 ml    1 Tbs    Water (use some from holding the apples)
                    Lemon Juice
 120 ml  1/2 Cup    Apricot Preserves
   2 g   1/4 tsp    Salt

Peel and core the apples; hold them in a bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon to prevent then from turning brown. If you don't have an apple corer (we don't, it's a "uni-tasker"), you can cut the apples in half after peeling then use a melon baller to remove the tough center.

Cut the halves into 6-8 wedges each, you want to preserve the wedge shape of the apple for presentation. Hold the cored wedges in the acidulated water until you're finished with prepping the apples.

If you're doing a single recipe, you probably can do topping and puree apples in two separate large skillets, or use one large skillet and do the topping and puree sequentially. If you're doubling the batch, you probably won't have enough giant skillets.

Cook a bit less than half the apples (by weight is easiest to measure), the best looking wedges, in half the butter and some of the water from the holding bowl until they're pliant but not soft and mushy. Stir gently to make sure all the wedges get fairly evenly cooked. If some break, it's OK, you can use them for the puree, but try to be careful.  It took about 10 minutes for our apples, but every variety will be different. Reserve to a large plate; I used cookie sheet lined with a nonstick mat.

While the apples are cooking, add a bit of water to the Apricot Preserves and heat in microwave to thin, strain to collect thin syrup in a bowl for finishing, and retain solids for the puree.

Cook the other half of the apples for the puree the same way, but cook longer until they're a bit softer. If you need to make up some presentation wedges for the topping, pull them out early and put them with the previous cooked wedges.  Put these puree wedges into a food processor with the Apricot Preserves solids and process until very smooth.  Put the puree back into the skillet and cook to concentrate flavor and texture -- I was looking for an almost custard-like texture rather than loose applesauce. Remove from heat.

Fill the baked crust to the top with the puree but don't go over the edge; if you're a bit short, that's fine.

Start laying out the attractive wedges around the outside, starting with the largest wedges, overlapping each one. Continue to the center, pressing each slightly into the puree, being mindful that you want to end up in the dead center and not wander off.  When you are almost done, select the smallest and most thin pliable wedges to curl and nestle snugly into the center void.

Bake at 180C/350F or 165C/325F convection for 30 minutes on a wire rack above a sheet pan to catch any drips but let the bottom of the tart pan to get some heat.
Remove tart from oven and turn on the broiler, with a rack about 3-4 inches below the top element.
If the retained Apricot Preserve syrup is thick, reheat in the microwave briefly to thin.
Brush the syrup over the tops of the apple wedges to gloss, drizzling it between the wedges to cover all surfaces; avoid getting it on the tart pan else it will make releasing difficult.
Return to broiler and broil 30 seconds to a few minutes, just until you develop attractive highlights in the glaze; you may need to rotate the tart pan to get even browning.
Remove and let cool.

Works fine in a disposable 9-inch aluminum pan

Scaled up for a 10-inch spring form pan