French Apple Tart

I actually made this last week but I've been a bad blogger recently. I haven't been cooking anything very exciting either, mostly because it has been so hot that I really don't want to be standing over a hot stove for any length of time. The apple crisp I posted about a couple of weeks ago is Blondini's real favourite apple dessert but in the summer who can face a hot apple pie? This, therefore, is our summer version.

French Apple Tart

Pastry
4oz hard tomor (or other hard fat)
8 oz plain flour
1 oz caster sugar
1 egg
A little water (I fill half an eggshell with water and this is usually the right amount)

Filling
7 cooking apples (rough amount - obviously depends on size)
Caster sugar to taste
Cinnamon to taste
Juice of half a lemon
1 teasp of oil or small amount of butter

Glaze
3 tablespoons apricot jam
3 tablespoons caster sugar

Combine the pastry ingredients together in a food processor or mix by hand until you have a smooth dough. Roll out and press into the pie dish. Cover with baking paper and baking beads (or weigh it down with something else) and put in the oven at 160 or your normal baking temperature for about 30 minutes, or until it has hardened but it not totally cooked.

While it is cooking, peel all of the apples (rub lemon juice over them to keep them from going brown while you work on other apples. Quarter 3 of the apples and cut them into thin slices - these will be the top of the tart. Put these in a bowl with a little of the lemon juice and sprinkle a little sugar over them. Cut the remaining apples into small chunks.

Heat the butter or oil in a saucepan and add the chunks of apple to it, stirring to prevent the apples burning or sticking to the bottom. Cover the pan and let the apples cook slowly. When they have softened, taste and add lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon as required. Keep stirring and cooking (covered) until you have an apple puree.

Spread the apple puree into the pastry case. Layer the sliced apples on top, starting on the outside, overlapping the pieces so that you have rings of overlapping apple. When completed, put the whole thing back into the oven. Cook for about 30 minutes (but check to ensure that the apples on the top are not burning (some may have darkened edges - this is unavoidable) on 160 or your normal baking temperature.

When the tart is out of the oven, take a bowl andcombine the jam and sugar and heat in the microwave (or in a saucepan) until a thick syrup is formed. I do this in the microwave and it is best to heat it for no more than a minute each time, and keep checking on it, as too long can burn it very quickly. It usually takes around 3 minutes, though obviously this will vary for all microwaves.

Using a spoon or palette knife, spread the glaze thinly over the whole tart. Leave to set and then refridgerate.

Apple Crisp

I could pretty much post about Apple Crisp any day of the week because it is one of my signature desserts and I make it all the time. Everything here is "Blondini's favourite" but this one really really is his favourite dessert, which is why we have it so often. We also call it Piao, but I won't go into why - it relates to things like Beauty and the Geek (which Blondini wouldn't want to admit he has watched) and Namibia and other hilarious in-jokes.

This is actually an invention of my mum's, and more often now she makes it as a strudel, laying out the filling onto sheets of pastry and rolling them up. This is because my brother claims not to like it as Apple Crisp, but really likes it as Apple Strudel, despite the ingredients being identical. It's one of the quickest and easiest desserts to make, and also one of the most effective. It is a Friday night staple in our house.

Apple Crisp
(serves 8-10 in a dish that is around 30cm diameter)

Filo pastry
4-5 Bramley's (cooking apples)
Raisins (if you like - we love them but some people don't and I once made this half with raisins half without)
A couple of tablespoons of brown sugar (you need to taste to see how sweet/tart the apples are)
1-2 teaspoons of cinammon
A squeeze of lemon
Sunflower or other tasteless oil spray
Icing sugar to garnish

Start by peeling, coring and chopping the apples. I cut them into little rectangles about 1.5cm x 1cm. Put them all into a bowl with a squeeze or two of lemon, to stop them from going brown along with the sugar, cinammon and raisins and mix together. Taste a piece of apple to see how sweet it is and then judge your sugar content from that. I probably use 1-2 tablespoons of sugar for this quantity of apples.

Spray the dish with the oil spray and then lay out sheets of filo pastry. You need to cover the whole dish and the sides (it's easiest just to leave a few centimeters hanging over the edges) and it should be about 2 layers thick in all parts. Give it another spritz of oil, and then tip in the apples and raisins. Level it out and then tear up pieces of filo pastry and scrunch them up and cover the apples with these. You'll probably get through 8 or 9 sheets of pastry like this - the whole area needs to be completely covered so that you can't see any apple. Spritz this again with oil when done, and then put in the oven and bake at 160 or your normal oven baking temperature (not too high) until it is golden brown - it will probably take about an hour. Remove and before serving, sieve some icing sugar over the pastry. We like to heat this in the oven whenever we serve it - you can of course eat it cold but the pastry tends to get soft and it tastes more strudelly than crispy, though it is still yum.