Free-form apple tart on rough puff pastry with apple-cider compote and apricot glaze
Claire Saffitz x Dessert Person · ♥ 29.3K likes · 4.7M views · 23 min video
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Ingredients
Method
Techniques
- 50 g dark brown sugar
- 160 g apricot jam
- 6 whole Pink Lady apples
- 2½ cup unsweetened, unfiltered apple cider
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ whole vanilla bean
- water
- 1 portion rough puff pastry
- all-purpose flour
- 1 whole beaten egg
In a saucepan combine 4 tbsp butter, the dark brown sugar, salt, the vanilla bean and a little water; reserve a quarter cup of the cider and 2 tbsp butter.
Bring to a boil over medium and cook off the water to make a quick toffee with caramel notes.
Peel three apples, trim top and bottom, cut the lobes off around the core and chop roughly.
When the bubbles slow and thicken, add the apples and cook about 8 to 10 minutes, until the toffee and juices concentrate and the apples are a little tender.
Add the apple cider slowly, as it can sputter; bring to a simmer and cook until the cider is reduced by about half.
Thwack the cold pastry to soften it without warming, roll it out on a floured surface to a rectangle, and trim by cutting straight down with a knife or bench scraper.
Rolling and trimming the pastry
Dock all over with a fork, leaving a one-inch border undocked so only the edges puff.
Docking, egg wash and sugared border
- white granulated sugar
Brush the border with beaten egg and sprinkle it with a little sugar; refrigerate.
When the apples are translucent and the cider halved, mash with a potato masher to a coarse applesauce and keep cooking, mashing occasionally, until very thick with very little liquid. Cool before assembling.
Cut the remaining three apples unpeeled into lobes and slice thinly with the tip of the blade, keeping each lobe's slices in a bundle.
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp apple cider
Melt the 2 tbsp butter with 2 tbsp cider for brushing the apples.
Butter-cider glaze for the apples
Spread about a cup and a half of cool compote a quarter inch thick inside the border; shingle the apple slices over it, overlapping generously since they shrink.
Assembling the tart
Brush the apples with the butter-cider mixture so they do not turn leathery.
Bake, starting hot to start the pastry puffing, then at 350F, 40 to 55 minutes in all, until the border is deep golden brown and the apples brown in spots.
- 2 tbsp apple cider
Warm the apricot jam with 2 tbsp cider until fluid and strain into a bowl.
Glaze the apples by dabbing rather than brushing, for a mirror finish.